Earnings Call: Q3 2012

Nov 7, 2012

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Yvonne welcoming you to ING's Q3 2012 Conference Call. Before handing this conference over to Mr. Jan Hammond, Chief Executive Officer of ING Group, let me first say that today's comments may include forward looking statements, such as statements regarding future developments in our business, expectations for our future financial performance and any statement not involving historical fact. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in any forward looking statement. A discussion of factors that may cause actual results to differ from those in our forward looking statement is contained in our public filings, including our most recent annual report on Form 20F filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and our earnings press release as posted on our website today. Furthermore, nothing in today's comments constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy to offer any securities. Good morning, Jan. Over to you. Thank you very much. And welcome everyone to our Q3 2012 results conference call. We posted solid Q3 results, particularly seen against the backdrop of the weakening economic environment. I will talk you through the presentation now and then we have Patrick Flynn, Wilfred Nagel and Matt Ryder here with me and we all will be available to answer your questions. Unfortunately, this will be the last time that Matt Ryder is present at his call. He will step down and he will return to the United States to join his family and look at other opportunities outside of ING. First, before we start the call, I'd like to take the opportunity to Sang Matt for his many years of dedicated service to ING and to the insurance as well as the Investment Management operations. Matt, thank you very much. During the Q3, I'm on slide 2, we continued to deliver our restructuring plan amid a challenging operating environment. The group posted an underlying net profit of €790,000,000 euros The bank underlying profit before tax increased to 1,021,000,000 supported by 3 23,000,000 gain on the sale of Capital One, which largely offset the £258,000,000 of derisking losses and the €173,000,000 negative credit adjustments. Insurance operating results declined to €238,000,000 primarily driven by lower investment margin and lower non life results. Underlying results before tax were €44,000,000 which includes negative results on hedges in place to protect our regulatory capital mainly in the Benelux and in the U. S. We have continued on slide 3 to make good progress on the European Commission restructuring program. We have announced the first resales of our Asian insurance units and our U. S. Organization is preparing to file a registration statement with the SEC. At the same time, together with the Dutch state, we have made good progress in our constructive dialogue with the European Commission about revisions to the restructuring plan. Slide 4. In October, we reached agreements on the sale of insurance units in Hong Kong, Macau and Thailand and the insurance operations in Malaysia and also our 33.3% stake in China Merchant Funds. The process for the remaining businesses is ongoing and further announcements will be made if and when appropriate. Proceeds will be used to reduce the double leverage, while at the same time maintaining the current leverage ratios in the insurance holding companies. It's at this moment premature to look at this on a deal by deal basis. We will assess the potential dividend upstream once we see all of the Asian deals completed. Slide 5. We continue to discuss various options for ING Life Japan including the Closed Block VA business. The closing of sales of our other Asian insurance units may trigger a charge to strengthen reserves for the Japanese closed block VA under our reserve adequacy policy. ING measures reserve adequacy at a business line level, where excess reserves in other Asian business units currently offset a shortfall related to the Japanese closed block VA. The reserve inadequacy for the Japanese insurance business including the VA guarantees we insured to ING Re is approximately minus €500,000,000 at the 50 percent confidence level. And that includes approximately a €1,100,000,000 for the closed block VA, which again is offset by about EUR 600,000,000 plus for the corporate owned life insurance business. The nature and timing of any P and L charge from such reserve inadequacy will depend on the closing of other divestments in Asia as well as on various options currently under investigation for ING Life Japan. We will make further announcements when we can make them and when appropriate. Slide 6. In the U. S, I must say I'm very pleased with the progress that our management team has made as they work towards an IPO. ING U. S. Is preparing to file a registration statement with the SEC in connection with the planned IPO. And upon filing and upon the SEC review, our company has drawn amendments will occur over the following 3 to 4 months. This means that we expect that somewhere in 2013, we plan to be ready to execute the first tranche of the IPO with timing being dependent on market conditions. Also slide 7, good progress was made by our team in the U. S. To become a stand alone company. Capitalization has improved with the estimated RBC ratio at 5 16% compared to a target of 425. Percent. Note however that the RBC ratio excludes our offshore reinsurer SLDI and that SLDI is still supported in part by a $1,500,000,000 contingent capital letter of credit with ING Bank. And that was put in place as you probably remember last year. We will continue our efforts to achieve a 25% debt to capital ratio and to redeem the €1,500,000,000 contingent capital letter of credit. The 25% is more or less a number that people expect for IPO companies. Given the various capitalization targets, we cannot rule out that parts of the IPO may be needed to support the capitalization of Insurance U. S. And replace the contingent capital facility. Slide number 8. Insurance Europe, we have stepped up our efforts to prepare the business for the best case of an IPO. And as part of this preparation, we have appointed Delphine Rado as CFO and Dorotheven Vredenburg who will handle communication, HR and our transformation process as new members of the management new Board We also announced that Insurance Europe is accelerating its transformation program to sharpen the strategic focus of its business unit at Nationale Nederland. And the strategic actions include that we are launching a new defined contribution pension solution business that we are helping customers transition from defined benefit to defined contribution pensions that we are accelerating retail life strategy through the introduction of new products and that we are increasing the focus on service and efficiency of cost and capital in existing closed block life, strengthening the position in the SME markets by rationalizing our product offering and focusing on very specific segments. Slide 10. In addition to the transformation at National Nederlanden, Insurance Europe will also delay the support functions to reduce overlap and streamline the organization. Combined these programs will result in a reduction of around 13.50 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet Es in 20 13 2014. A restructuring provision of approximately €150,000,000 after tax will be booked in the Q4 of this year. And then additionally, IT investments of about €75,000,000 after tax will be made over the coming 2 years to improve processes and systems. These costs will be booked as special items over time. Cost savings generated by these measures are expected to reach a run rate of €200,000,000 by the end of 2014. Slide 11. ING Bank continues to deliver on its strategic priorities. We did sell our equity stake in Capital One. We announced the divestments of ING Direct Canada and the U. K. As part of sharpening our strategic focus. We also accelerated de risking selling €4,900,000,000 of European debt securities and thereby releasing €6,000,000,000 of risk weighted assets in the 1st 9 months of this year. In October, we sold another €3,500,000,000 additional debt securities releasing another €1,000,000,000 of risk weighted assets. Furthermore, we are making clear progress in our cost initiatives in Retail Banking Netherlands, which is ahead of plan. And finally, we achieved another €5,200,000,000 of balance sheet integration initiatives in the 3rd quarter. And that brings the total to €33,000,000,000 since the beginning of 2011. Slide 12. Following a strategic review at Commercial Bank earlier this year, we decided to accelerate the implementation of strategic adaptations including the runoff of certain leasing units, the rightsizing of the equity businesses and operational improvements in several units including our PCM business, our payments and cash management business. These measures are expected to result in a reduction of about 1,000 FT feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet feet Es over the next 3 years, for which we will take an after tax provision of about €150,000,000 in the Q1 of 2012. Cost savings are expected to reach an annual run rate of about €260,000,000 in 2015. The review is ongoing and may lead to further changes in the future. Let's now turn to the results of the Q3 on slide 14. On slide 14, you can see that the bank posted a solid quarter, up both year on year and sequentially. At insurance, we kept hedges in place to protect our regulatory capital. However, losses on these hedges continue to affect, of course, our results. As a result, net underlying profit of the group at €790,000,000 in quite some challenging environments. Let's go to the bank on slide 16. The bank posted solid third quarter results as the gain on the sale of our equity stake in Capital One largely offset the losses from derisking and the negative impact from credit valuation and debt valuation adjustments. Risk costs increased slightly from the 2nd quarter. Underlying result before tax rose to 1,021,000,000 which is up 16.3% compared to the same quarter last year and 2.6% higher than the Q2 of this year. Underlying interest margin on a sequential basis improved to 1.33 percentage points. On page 17. During the Q3, we had de risking efforts in particular in the Eurozone area. Total bond sales amounted to €2,400,000,000 for which we took a loss of €258,000,000 Sales were focused on the Spanish covered bonds, Spanish and Iris RMBSs and European CMBS. And we cleaned up the numbers for these and other market impacts to make them more comparable, the gross result went up by 12.2% versus the Q3 last year and up 2.8% if you compare that with the Q2 this year. Interest result was up by 2.2% from a year ago and 3.6% sequentially, primarily due to strong results in financial markets. The margin rose to 1.33 percent from 1.26% in the 2nd quarter, mainly by higher interest results as well as lower average balance sheet level during the Q2 during the Q3. Margins on savings are under some pressure, despite reductions from of client rates in many countries, reflecting the impact of lower interest rates and the derisking. Margins on lending improved in the 3rd quarter, supported by moderate volume growth in mortgages and of course by repricing of loans that came due. Operating expense, we continue to put high priority on cost containment. Operating expense increased marginally by 0.5% from the previous year. Strong cost control that was able to offset the annual salary increases. The fact that we had higher bank levies and one time additional tax on employee salaries and negative currency effects. Compared with the Q2 2012 that included a €38,000,000 reimbursement from the old deposit guarantee scheme in Belgium and we had lower performance related expenses. If you eliminate that, expenses rose by 3.9%. The underlying costincome ratio was 58.7 percent or 56.9 percent when you include the market impacts and the CVA DVA adjustments. We believe that Q4 expense will be impacted by a new divestiture of about €175,000,000 Risk costs. The weak economic and business fundamentals continued to contribute to elevated levels of risk cost in the Q3. Although the net addition to the provision for loan losses rose only by 2.6% to €555,000,000 It increased 59.5% if you compare that year on year. The modest increase compared with the Q2 was mainly attributable to the mid corporate and SME segments in the Benelux and provisioning for a CMBS position in ING Direct. ING expect risk costs to remain elevated reflecting the weakening of the economic climate. Nonperforming loans, slide 21. Ratio remained stable at 2.3%. Ratios amid Corps and SMEs and real estate finance and leasing that is the runoff continued to be relatively high and we saw that again in previous quarters. Loan loss provision for real estate finance declined to €102,000,000 from €120,000,000 in the previous quarter. NPL ratio for REF increased to 8% compared to 7.3% at the end of June, which is mainly driven by the Netherlands and to a lesser extent by the U. K. Nonperforming loans in our €2,700,000,000 real estate finance portfolio in Spain remained high at 19%. And risk cost on this portfolio increased to €51,000,000 in this quarter reflecting lower real estate valuations following our regular appraisal of collateral. Given the deteriorating commercial real estate market in Europe, we expect that risk costs for REF will remain elevated. Risk costs for Dutch mortgages declined to €44,000,000 from €53,000,000 in the previous quarter and that included a mobile update at Westland Utrecht Bank. NPL for the Dutch mortgage portfolio increased slightly, but has remained relatively low at 1.3% supported by again a relatively low unemployment rate in the Netherlands. As house prices are expected to decline further and unemployment to increase, we expect risk costs for the Dutch mortgage market to remain elevated. Last Monday, a new government was installed in the Netherlands. Their plans to for the coming years include housing market reform among which a gradual decline in the tax deductibility for new and existing mortgages and also a reform of the rental markets. Slide 24. Given the further weakening of the Spanish economy in the Q3, we continue to proactively derisk our exposure to Spain to reduce our concentration and to mitigate risk weighted assets migration. The bank's total exposure to Spain was reduced by €1,800,000,000 including €200,000,000 in the lending book and €1,800,000,000 in the debt securities portfolio, mainly as a result of sales of covered bonds and RMBS. The Spanish funding mismatch, defined Ligma as the Spanish assets outstanding minus the local funding has reduced from €13,800,000,000 at the end of Q2 to below €10,000,000,000 at the end of this quarter. Spanish covered bonds will be further reduced as our portfolio is maturing. Slide 25. The core Tier one ratio increased from 11.1 to 12.1. And that was of course supported by the gain that we made on the sale of our Cap One stake and strong reduction in RWAs following derisking and the sale of the stake of Capital One. If we would include the sale of ING Direct Canada and ING Direct U. K, the pro form a core Tier 1 ratio is at, I think, a very robust 12.6%. The new accounting on pensions will come into effect on January 1 as far as we know and that will require immediate recognition of actuarial gains and losses through the equity account. Based on the numbers of September 30, this would have an impact of about 50 basis points negative on the Bancorp Tier 1 ratio. That reduction was already included in the fully loaded Basel III pension impact. On page 26, you see the timing of the COD IV implementation and the final form of it are still very uncertain. In the consultant paper that we got from the DNB, a Dutch National Bank, it indicates that the revaluation reserve for debt securities will be phased in rather than applied immediately. As a result of these changes and the introduction of IAS 19 on pensions, the impact on Basel III is estimated to be a negative 140 basis points. Then we will introduce it and later when it will be phased in on a plus of 20 basis points. The impact excludes our deferred tax assets, which are expected to be used prior to Basel III implementation and retained earnings after September 30th this year. So Q4 is not included yet. Furthermore, management actions are expected to reduce our risk weighted assets by at least €18,000,000,000 of which €8,000,000,000 has already been achieved so far. Now let's turn to insurance. Slide 28. Results from insurance declined as derisking measures and low interest rate environment put pressure on the investment margin. Also our non life results continue to be impacted by high disability claims. Together, they reduced the operating result for insurance by 39.3% compared with a year ago. Underlying results continue to be impacted by losses on hedges that we maintain in order to focus on protecting our regulatory capital amidst these very volatile financial markets. Investment margin declined compared with the last quarter reflecting the impact of derisking in the Benelux as well as exceptionally high dividends that were paid in Q3 of last year. The investment margin also declined from the 2nd quarter mainly reflecting seasonality. Q4 rolling the 4th quarter rolling average investment spread was 130 basis points, which is down from 133 basis points in the last quarter, again reflecting derisking and the low interest rate environment. Technical margin. Fees and premium based revenues totaled €784,000,000 which was down 2% excluding foreign exchange. It was up 0.3%, if you compare that with the Q2 this year. In the U. S, higher fees and premium based revenues from the ongoing businesses more than offset by higher hedge costs and lower fees on the closed block VA. Technical margin improved to 122,000,000 dollars compared with €100,000,000 a year ago, reflecting both improvements in the U. S. As well as the Benelux. We continue to be very tight on expenses. They did increase slightly from the previous year, reflecting investments for growth in Investment Management and Central and Eastern Europe. And while expenses remain flat in the middle of Lux and Insurance U. S. Reflecting as I said very strict cost control. Ratio was 47.6%. As mentioned earlier, Insurance Europe is accelerating its transformation program, which is expected to generate cost savings of approximately €200,000,000 by the end 2014. If we take a closer look at our business areas, we see that insurance Benelux posted lower operating results as the impact of derisking and higher dividends in both comparable quarters led to a decline in the investment margin. And non life results continue to be impacted by the higher disability claims in the Netherlands. Underlying results including market related impacts remain volatile as insurance Benelux continues to focus on hedging to protect regulatory capital that leads to volatility in our P and L. Underlying profit for the quarter declined significantly from a year ago, but it did improve compared to the Q2. Lower sales in the Benelux compared to the same quarter last year were offset by a 13.3% higher sales in our Eastern European and Central European businesses, driven in particular by increased sale in Life and Pensions. Insurance U. S. Had a strong 3rd quarter operating results of €195,000,000 that was 14.1% better than the same quarter last year and 12% better than the 2nd quarter. The increase over both quarters reflects improved results in the Retirement Solutions business. Underlying result before tax increased strongly to €398,000,000 and that was supported by gains on the sale of securities and positive DAC unlocking following model refinements and assumption updates. Sales were flat as higher retirement sales were offset intentionally by lower annuity and individual life sales. Results from the U. S. Closed Block VA continued to reflect the volatility as the hedge program is focused on protecting regulatory capital rather than mitigating earnings volatility. The underlying result declined to a negative 348,000,000 reflecting the hedge losses, net of reserve changes and €104,000,000 charge related to lapse assumption refinements. Reserve adequacy has improved to the 74% confidence level. As a result, reserves are projected to remain adequate even in a 25% down shock scenario. While the focus on capital protection continues to cause IFRS P and L volatility, earnings sensitivities at least are now more symmetric. Insurance Asia posted another strong result in the Q3 despite the sales process for these businesses. Operating results increased from a higher investment income which rose on strong general account asset growth as well as the we saw improved mortality results in Korea. Sales declined from last year. That was mainly in Japan because of tax law changes that was affecting our colicancer product sales, but increased from the previous quarter driven by growth in Malaysia and Hong Kong as well as in Japan from product diversification. So let me wrap it up quickly. We continue to deliver on our restructuring program. We announced already free sales of our Asian insurance units and the process for the remaining businesses is ongoing. U. S. Is preparing to file a registration statement with the SEC and Insurance Europe is accelerating the transformation program to sharpen strategic focus of business units at National Nederlanden. The bank had a good quarter, but the commercial banking franchise has decided to accelerate the implementation of a number of strategic adaptations that will lead to cost savings of about €260,000,000 by the year 2015. The group had a net underlying profit of €790,000,000 As I said, a very strong or very solid quarter for the bank with results up both year on year and sequentially. And underlying results before tax and insurance declined primarily due to negative results on hedges that we use to protect our regulatory capital. And with that, I think we are ready to answer your questions. Thank you, sir. The first question is from Jan Willem Wiedemann from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. I'm sorry, the first question is from Michael Van Vagen from the Bank of Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Yeah, good morning guys. Mike Faiza, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Two questions please. First of all, you made comments in the press release that you're making good progress your discussions with the European Commission. If I remember well, at the beginning of the year, you indicated your ambition to repay at least part of the state support before year end. I don't think there is any news on that today. Would you should we conclude from that that you're comfortable or hopeful that you might reach an agreement with the European Commission for year end and want to wait therefore with a general announcement? Or how should we interpret that? The second question is you touched upon the changes in the Dutch tax legislation for mortgages. What's your opinion on the impact on the housing market this will have and the potential losses for mortgages? I know that you said risk costs will remain elevated. Thank you. Yes. Michael, good morning. We have made good progress in our discussions together with the Dutch state with the European Commission. And good progress really means that means good progress. But we don't have anything to report at this moment. As soon as we have and as soon as the European Commission has, I think we will do so. Our payment intention as a Dutch state continues. We would like to pay them back as soon as possible. But we also need to be mindful repayment. So I have said indeed earlier this year and I will continue that again that we like to make at least a part repayment this year to the Dutch state. But I think it's better to wait for the final arrangement that we hope to make with the European Commission before making any further comments. On the mortgages in the Netherlands and the tax consequences, the changes in the tax law, they are not really that significant. They are over time. They are declining from an ability to deduct 52% in a number of years almost 20 years down to 38%. So that's a very gradual decline. I think more important, this government has taken, I think, very concrete steps to deal with the housing markets in a wholesome way, not just looking at homes that you can buy, but also the rental markets. And it's too early to say what the implications will be. It hangs too much together with what will happen with the total economy. But I think in general these are good steps forward. Don't know Wilfred anything to add? Well maybe just to add a bit of color to it. If you look at the measures that are being contemplated or introduced as Jan was saying that the deductibility itself will probably not have a lot of impact. What has a bit more impact is the fact that new loans will have to amortize in order to qualify for tax deductions. So that will gradually reduce affordability a bit. At the same time, of course, the houses most affected by that are also coming down in price. So net net whether the affordability is really that much affected remains to be seen. Maybe the bigger impact on this will come from the increased health insurance premiums that will reduce spendable income and have an indirect impact on the housing market and ability of people to service their loans. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from Jan Willem Virdemar from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead. Mr. Ville Desmar from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead with your question. Sorry about that. That's okay. For your Basel III guidance, if I remember correctly, your old guidance was an impact of 80 basis points, now fully phased in 120 basis points. Can you take me through the difference there between the old and the new guidance? And secondly, can you comment on the impact of derisking of the NIM going forward? And finally on your U. S. RBC ratio, can you comment on the impact of the dampener for low rates? And how big is the benefit? And do you expect that to come down in the coming quarters if rates stay where they are? Patrick will do that. In respect of the Bal III impact, if I recall last quarter, we said the impact was I think around 160 in aggregate of which half of it came immediately and half of it was phased in. What we're showing now is the overall impact is slightly bigger. It's about 170 although the timing of the impact has changed principally because of IAS 2019, which will accelerate some of this into immediate impact. So there's 50 basis points from the pension that comes in immediately. Also as Jan mentioned, the Dutch regulator has indicated that the mark to market on bonds will be phased in rather than immediate and that defers some of the benefit later. So yes, what we're seeing broadly in aggregate the same overall impact $160,000,000 $170,000,000 but some further acceleration of the impact because of IAS 2019. And by the way, we're not even sure BAL3 will come in Q1 next year because we haven't seen CRD4 ratified yet. And the other impact RBC, yes, there's been some benefit from unrealized gains due to low rates. Thank you. The next question is from Andrew Coombs from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Good morning. I have three questions in fact. The first question relates to slides 10 and 12, the 2 cost save initiatives announced. Perhaps you could also provide thoughts on what the revenue attrition associated with those cost saves might be. That's the first question. 2nd question on Slide 21. You've detailed the NPL increase in real estate, but perhaps you could shed some color on the increase in corporate and in leasing there. And if you could also provide how or if you could give an example of how the coverage ratios have changed in each of those buckets, that would also be appreciated. And then the final question is on derisking. You've done €5,000,000,000 of production year to date, the loss of €475,000,000 You mentioned October is another €3,500,000,000 reduction, but a loss of €119,000,000 So just interested to know your thoughts on how much more derisking you're planning to do? How much of that is probably to be achieved via active sales or whether that's likely to come through natural amortization from here? Thank you. So just referring to the Nationale Nederland and the Dutch expense savings programs, we would not anticipate any impact on revenues. These are purely expense saves with some investment required to be able to get there. And the same I think for the Commercial Bank there is some impact on revenues, but they are completely outweighed by the big benefits we are seeing on the expense side. Wilfred Real Estate? Yes. I understand the question was you see the NPL numbers for real estate, but can we add some color on corporate and leasing beyond that? Is that correct? That's correct, please. Okay. If you look at the Commercial Banking portfolio overall, the NPLs were up slightly from 4.3% previous quarter to 4.5% this quarter. And digging a little bit into those numbers, the general corporate lending went up from 3.9% sorry to 3.9% from 3.6 percent and leasing to 7.8 percent from 6.8 percent. Ref you've seen the Structured Finance number actually came down a bit from 2.4 percent to 2.2 And in terms of the risk cost, the corporate lending book risk cost was down from 105 to 65. Leasing went from €35,000,000 to €29,000,000 and destructive finance risk cost went from €55,000,000 to 40,000,000 The coverage ratios, generally stable. If you look at the commercial book overall, it's around 40%. The general lending book went up a bit in cover from 50% to 52%. The Structured Finance came down slightly from 53% to 40 7% and the rest was pretty much stable. And then just on the derisking? Yes. And specifically, I guess the question would be on Spain. And We have said all along that this was a large book that in terms of quality is definitely not a major concern, but it's just large in a difficult economic environment. So we've actively managed it. And as and when we see opportunities to do so at attractive prices, we will continue to do that. But at the same time, I think you referred to that. There is a natural runoff in the book that is quite substantial. It would be about €2,600,000,000 next year on the schedule as alone and another €2,500,000,000 the year thereafter. So it will continue to come down. But we may, if we see opportunities actively manage it further. But I think it's fair to say that the biggest derisking exercises that we have done are basically behind us. From time to time when we see an opportunity, I think we'll take advantage of it. But the big stuff I think is basically done. Yes. I think the concentration for now is more on RWA migration and not so much on risk mitigation. Thanks very much. Thank you. The next question is from Francesca Ndi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you very much. A couple of questions also on my side. Looking not just on your net interest margin, but your net interest income progression, you seem to be having a positive trend in most of the parts of the business. Could you expand a little bit more on where that progression is coming, especially in retail Benelux and Belgium, sorry, we're actually seeing quite a bit of an improvement versus the Netherlands, which see some decline, some of the improvement in the commercial banking business. I don't see a significant improvement on the lending or increase in the lending. So if you could expand on the reason for the increase. Going back for a moment to your Spanish derisking, interested in your comment that the large part has been done. I see, however, that actually credit spreads are still contracting. I was a bit surprised that actually what you did in the 3rd quarter seemed to be less in the Q2 with bigger charges. Can you just expand a little bit on what are the trends that you're seeing there? And why you think that the big part has been done? Would it not be making sense to accelerate a little bit more? And yes, that's pretty much it. Thank you. Yes. With respect to the interest margin, yes, you're right. Not only did the in basis points term, we have a nice uptick to 130 euros 1,000,000 part of which due to balance sheet reduction. But also the interest earnings, as you say, did increase. That's up 107,000,000 about half of that is in Commercial Banking in Financial Markets. Whilst that can be volatile in terms of the composition of financial markets income, I think it's important to point out that the revenues there have been pretty solid over €300,000,000 both quarters. You don't necessarily see that in the bottom line because of the volatile CVA, DVA. But financial markets has held up pretty well. In terms of the core businesses, what we're seeing is a small increase overall In interest margins both in Belgium and the Netherlands you referred to them, we've the interest costs have been reduced by about 20 basis points as we pay on savings, which is a positive. However, that didn't offset fully the impact of lower interest rates. So the net earnings were slightly negative in terms of the core savings piece. In terms of lending, the margin improved again marginally small increase. But that was on the back of repricing on higher cost of funds, which is a positive and demonstrates again further commitment to maintain discipline in pricing. So what do we think in terms of outlook going forward? Yes, I think it should hold up reasonably well at these levels. We would expect that the impact of the price reductions should offset you'll see the full effect of that more in the 4th quarter should offset broadly the impact of the lower interest rate environment in terms of the near term. And obviously going forward, we still believe that the we will migrate towards the longer term 140, 145 basis points target we said at the Investor Day supported by balance sheet optimization, which we have more to do on and gradual repricing of the loan book. And just looking also the benefits on the in the finance division, how do you look at the trends on your hedges? Because clearly rolling over time at lower yields clearly has a drag effect. So positive this quarter versus what you see this trend going forward on that side? And hedges typically in the bank are what you would call accrual accounted. Yes. The key thing there is that the margin on new business and the hedges roll into the cost of funds. And what we're trying to do, we've done it in retail mortgages as well as commercial. You are looking to and we are looking to execute on our strategic ambitions, which involve reflecting the higher cost of credit. So it's more about re pricing the cost to the customer. The hedging is wrapped into the cost of funds. So you're not necessarily going to see that in terms of net of a separate impact. Okay. But do you think that then net then you'll be able to more than offset the negative roll off of the edges and therefore seeing that as positive then trending towards your so are we trusting margin what I'm saying here? Yes. I think the issue which may be negative is that there's maybe lower volumes as prices go up. Okay. And since you've touched upon your effectively the reorganization of the balance sheet. If you wouldn't mind just give us a quick update on that? Yeah. The ambition is to we have as I mentioned earlier €11,000,000,000 of retail inflow. So on a back deposit inflow half of which is retail half of which is commercial. Core strength is the ability to generate deposits. What we aim to do is to continue to migrate our lending capacity to areas where we have deposit generation. So it's about moving commercial banking origination capability to Belgium and into Germany where there are strength. And what is the update on this quarter for what you've managed to do so far? I mean, I think we've given that in aggregate. It's not something we would give quarter by quarter. Okay. So that's fine. And then my last question, if you don't mind, about the Spanish deleveraging. And why is it that the biggest chunk is done? Yes. On that, if you look back over the past quarters, Q2 for us was mainly about reducing the absolute volume of the exposures and the mismatch. 3rd quarter was more about risk mitigation. As I said earlier, what we're now looking really is more the risk migration risk than anything else and to control that. And your comment about credit spreads and improvement in pricing, I mean looking a little bit beyond the weekly volatility there, the overall prices currently in October are pretty much where they were in June. So there's not a massive change. And to us that signals that, yes, there is volatility, but there's not really a big trend at the moment. The other observation is that we do have a serious and sizable client franchise in Spain. And the objective is to gradually reduce our investment book there and replace them with originated assets. And the current runoff of the investment book supports that nicely. Okay. I understand. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Francois Boussaint from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. A few questions, please. The first one on the Japanese VA book. Basically, could you just walk us through the various scenarios, interest potential hits that you could take according to your, let's say, disposals? And second question is on risk weighted assets migration in Spain. You mentioned this risk. Can you maybe quantify the additional risk weighted assets that we could see in the coming quarters in Spain? And then finally, about the competitive landscape in Netherlands, Could you maybe just give some color about competitors' behavior in terms of pricing? And if you're able basically to reprice loans as in line with your expectations or do you face hurdles? Thank you. Just with respect to the Japan VA book, I think we disclosed in this quarter that we do have a reserve inadequacy of about €500,000,000 for the totality of Japan COLI plus the VA that is reinsured with ING Re. That is composed of this €1,100,000,000 inadequacy for the VA block and it's compensated by a $600,000,000 adequacy or surplus if you will at the corporate owned life insurance business. We disclose it in this way because actually the consequences of when things get reported as losses crystallized are very, very much dependent on the timing of the closing of the various transactions in part that we've already announced and in part that we will be announcing. So it's a little bit early to talk about overall impacts because we need to know the timing of those transactions, the amount of those transactions and actually the ultimate resolution to what we do with the sale of the overall Japan business. Okay. Maybe just a follow-up question on that. What are the sensitivities here? I mean, what could cause the inadequacy to rise? And what could basically ease this shortfall? The inadequacies are the inadequacies. So the point is when the stuff ultimately gets reflected in our financial accounting and the way that we publish our results. So the sensitivities are basically the timing of the various transactions, the amount of the proceeds, the gains and losses that we would see on those. That's the sensitivity. I would add also that these are generally IFRS impacts and that from a capital standpoint, we've already had the capitalization correct in ING Re. Okay. So there's no real market sensitivity here? There is market sensitivity, but it has more to do with the impact of let's say financial markets and negotiations on the ultimate the prices that we get for these assets. As you know we have announced several of them. There will be several to come, but it has more to do with that than anything else. Okay. Thank you. So and about the risk weighted assets migration and competitive landscape? Yeah. We're getting to it. I mean, I think this is more about what we're talking about here is avoiding the potential for this to happen in the future. So what we've done is looked at taken preventative action to particularly in asset backed security space to get ahead of the curve. So it's avoiding things that might come rather than guiding for future increases. We're trying to avoid negative impacts. And we I think we've done that reasonably successfully so far. Okay. Okay. On the competitive behavior in the Netherlands, I don't think we can say much except that we do what we do and competitors do what they do. We are tight. We are pricing our products as we see based on new capital rules as we need to price them. And I think we're very diligent and very disciplined in our pricing behavior. What others do is what others do. We just follow the lines of ING. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from Michael Huttner from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Fantastic. Thank you very much. I had three questions. The first one is, if I just to give a feel for the banking profitability. So EUR 1,000,000,000 is reported underlying pretax. You had a target of 10% to 13%, which I think was between €3,300,000,000 and €4,200,000,000 net. So assuming the €1,000,000,000 annualized is €4,000,000,000 then net of tax about €3,000,000 So you've got a there's a gap there. And I'm just wondering how quickly you can close that gap and where is it going to come from? Then you talked about the €1,500,000,000 letter of credit. It wasn't clear to me how this was going to be repaid. Is it the U. S. IPO? Or is the U. S. Going to raise hybrid debt on its own and that will replace it, so it wouldn't necessarily impinge on the IPO proceeds? And the last one is looking at slide 5, the €1,100,000,000 book value for INGV is for me a new disclosure. I'm sure I missed it somewhere before. But what I noticed that it's not on slide 4. In other words, we still have it's gone up because we're in Q3 around Q2, but about €6,000,000,000 in total €6,900,000,000 in tangible book of Asia assets. And then now we've got this €1,100,000,000 Does it take should I take that to mean that INGV is now also to be included in the assets for sale relating to Asia? Thank you very much. Okay. If you look at the bank, the bank is making €1,000,000,000 before tax. And if you relate our numbers, we are making a 10% return on a 10% core Tier 1 ratio as we have defined that. So we're basically in the range that we have said before between 10% 13% already there. If you compare that on the actual equity that we have today, it's a little lower. But I think you need to calculate that over time on what the target ratio will be for our capital. And at this moment, we are maintaining internally a 10% core Tier 1 ratio as a target capital ratio for core Tier 1. And this is core Tier 1 fully loaded? Yes. But it is fully loaded as we have it today, yes. Okay. On the €1,500,000,000 facility that we have as the U. S, all we have done here is we have mentioned to you that there is a facility and a credit facility available that needs to be dealt with. And we are not at this moment saying how it will be dealt with. We are going to take a look at that very carefully over time together with our U. S. Colleagues. But it could potentially have an impact and that's what we have been willing to flag today just to have full disclosure. Patrick on the 1.1? In respect to Japan the capital in Japan, it was disclosed last quarter albeit I think in the table you're referring to if I recall correctly it was a footnote. But it was isolated before so it hasn't changed in that respect. But should I take it to mean that the INGV is now for sale? Or is it not for sale? I'm puzzled because it appears in one table and not in the other. And I'm not sure and clearly the tables are related to the extent that you the VA provision kind of affects all of these things? No. ING Re is not for sale, but it includes reinsured transactions other than out of Japan. Obviously, when we complete all of the Asian transactions, this will the element in ING that relates to NII will come out in the overall result. Excellent. Thank you, Erez. Thank you. The next question is from Gordon Aiken from RBC. Please go ahead. Good morning. A couple of questions, please. Firstly, insurance sales are down 1.4%. Just talk a bit about how your insurance businesses are being affected by the knowledge that in 2 years' time they will be under different ownership? I mean how many percentage points do you think that's knocking off the growth? And secondly, on the Dutch DB market, just wondering how many schemes you took on in the Q3? And what's your outlook for this market? I'd take both of them. In terms of the insurance sales, I think what we're seeing is the so your specific question is what impact is the announcements of divestitures having on insurance sales overall. And in general, we're seeing actually the we are seeing movements in the sales numbers, but they're not really as a result of the announced divestments. We're seeing actually generally flattish sales in the retirement business in the U. S. We've seen some reduced sales in the life insurance business in the U. S. As well as in the annuity business. But those are more management actions we saw that on one of the other slides. Within the Benelux, I think we're seeing lower sales again as a consequence of more lower interest rates than anything else. On the life insurance side, particularly in the Netherlands and in Belgium. But then in CRE, we're seeing sales up 13% over the Q3 last year, of which 10% is life. So in those areas, we see actually some pretty good sales growth. So kind of a long answer to your short question, we're not seeing a lot of impact as a consequence of the announced investments. With respect to the Dutch defined benefit market, that's what I think we have to come back to you on. I don't know exactly what we've done in the Q3 with respect to new plans. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from Marcus Rivaldi from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody. So as per your original EC state aid decision, if the oversight on higher recalls seems to fall away on 18th November. So my question really is should subordinated bondholders expect this original agreement to hold? Or could an extension to this behavioral restriction form part of a new agreement with the EC? And the question really is because there are a clear number of bonds coming to call in December. And then related to that, what are you planning to do with bonds that were not called during the course of that period of EC oversight? Do you need the capital? Would you just call them? Do you envisage tenants and exchanges? And then just a final question, please. Any comments you can make around the potential for ING involvement in a potential SNS Property Finance bad bank solution? Thank you. We are as I said earlier, we are making good progress with the European Commission. We are doing that together with the Dutch state. We cannot, at this moment, give you any more information than that and give you more color than that. We have made good progress. Under the arrangements we have, we have to ask the EC for permission to make calls and to do repayments. And I cannot give you any further answer than this on this subject. You will have to wait until you see at the end what decisions are coming out of Europe. And we don't know them today. And so we cannot tell you right now. With respect to the, let's say, participation by SNS or by ING in a potential with SNS, I cannot give you comment. I have absolutely no comment to make on SNS. Okay. Just coming back into the bond thing. I guess the issue of the confusion is that you have an existing agreement which seems to end on the 18th November. So should we consider that effectively null and void at this stage? I cannot help you. I'm sorry I cannot help you. We have made good progress with the European Commission, but you are basically on your own at this moment. I cannot give you any more help. Okay. Thank you very much anyway. Yeah. Thank you. The next question is from David Andrick from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. I just had a couple of questions on the Benelux Insurance business. First of all, I was just wondering in terms of the non line performance, what actions you've taken to address this? 2nd, well, if I look at the 2nd quarter results, it was down from 2Q 2011 by about 7% for Benelux sales and particularly Individual Life. And in this quarter, I think it's down by about 23%. I was just wondering if this is kind of a trend which you see continuing and or if it's kind of leveling off? And then finally, I was just wondering in terms of the IG ratio for the group as well as I was wondering if you had it broken apart for the Benelux European business as well? Thank you. I'll take these piece by piece. So first of all, on the Non Life business, you'll recognize that our Non Life results were down in the Q3. We have taken a charge as a consequence largely of claims in disability area and we have strengthened the provisions there. The actions that we take, well, aside from strengthening the reserves, of course, are to increase premiums. We have stopped sales of certain sickness types of products. We have instituted programs to get people back to work more quickly. So this is more of a claims handling types of issues. So I think that we have taken quite some actions just from a pure business standpoint to get that back on track. So it's a disappointing result obviously for the Q3, but we take some actions which I think will bring that back into line. All of that, of course, driven by the difficult economic environment here in the Netherlands. With respect to the sales, what you've seen is declining sales as a consequence largely of retail sales within the Netherlands and in Belgium. And what you're seeing also is that certain of our products, which had previously been insurance products are now being transformed into sales of what's called bancspot products. And these are not included in the APE figures, but they are included in the figures of the bank. And you'll see that a bit in our disclosure. But clearly, Life sales are a bit lagging here. There's also some seasonality to the numbers. So when you look at comparisons quarter on quarter, they become a little bit difficult. With respect to the IGD ratio, we don't provide any further breakdowns of that overall. We do provide at year end some information on capitalization of some of the bigger businesses, but we don't disclose that on the in between quarters. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. The final question is from Manish Bakhdeva from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Good morning. Just one further question from a debt holder perspective. I appreciate you can't comment on what's going on with Easty. But given bonds issued out of the insurance holdco have very specific language around the sale of the insurance businesses. Does ING view these calls on these bonds any differently to other bonds? I have no better answer than the one I have given you earlier. I cannot comment and you will have to have some patience. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much for being on the call. I think this is the final question. If you have any more calls that we did not answer, please direct them to Dorothy and team. They are very capable and very willing to answer your questions. In the meantime, thanks a lot and have a great day. Thank you, sir. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.