Welcome to ING Media Call 2Q 2023 results. This conference is being recorded. For the duration of the call, your lines will be in listen only. You will have the opportunity to ask questions, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to Steven van Rijswijk, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the call. With me are Tanate Phutrakul , our CFO, and Ljiljana Čortan , our CRO. We'll give you a short update of developments in the second quarter. Then we'll open the call for questions. The past quarter was characterized by challenges like weaker economic sentiment, persisting geopolitical uncertainties, and inflation, which remained high. In these circumstances, we continued to deliver strong results. The interest rate environment drove income growth in both Retail and Wholesale Banking, with deposit inflows across our retail markets. Despite cooling economies, we had another quarter with lending growth and higher fee income, especially in Wholesale Banking.
We saw the number of primary customers grow with 227,000 to 14.9 million in our 10 retail markets, and now 60% of our customers only do business with us through their mobile, up from 53% a year ago. In Retail Banking, deposit growth continued, particularly in Germany. Our mortgage portfolio grew as well, driven by increases in Australia, the Netherlands, and Germany. In Wholesale Banking, we recorded another strong quarter with disciplined capital management and higher income over risk-weighted assets. Daily Banking and Trade Finance benefited from the interest rate environment in Wholesale Banking, and fee income rose both in global capital markets and in lending.
We continued to support activities and initiatives of our clients through growth in lending, which was offset by lower volumes in trade and commodity finance and working capital solutions, reflecting lower commodity prices and lower economic activity. We aim to put sustainability at the heart of what we do, and as a global bank, we're financing today's society, which is not yet green enough. We're determined to use our strengths and capabilities to help our clients transition to a low-carbon economy by providing them with the necessary products and advice. In the first six months, we closed 234 sustainability transactions versus 205 in the first half of last year. So far this year, we mobilized a financing volume of almost EUR 47 billion. That meets sustainability standards, up from EUR 40 billion in the first half of last year again.
Financially, we benefited from the current rate, interest rate environment. Our income in the second quarter was 23% higher than a year ago, supported by improved margins on liabilities. Expenses came down slightly compared to the previous quarter, despite inflationary pressure on staff costs. Our risk costs were limited, underlying the quality of our loan book, but we also remain vigilant as the cost of living and doing business rises for our customers. Overall, this resulted in a net profit of over EUR 2.1 billion, and this meant that our capital position strengthened to a 14.9% CET1 ratio, which is well above regulatory requirements and above our own target of 12.5%.
In short, in a challenging environment, our business model allowed us to achieve strong results as we continued to execute our strategy enabled by our digital foundations. I'm confident in our efforts and ability to continue to make a difference for people and to the planet and deliver value to all of our stakeholders. With that, we're happy to take your questions now.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question from the queue, please press star two. Again, please press star one to ask a question over the phone. We'll take the first question from Rutger Betlem from Financial Daily. Please go ahead.
Good morning, all. Thank you for taking my call. My first question is on page nine of the press release. There's a part about the non-financial risk as a regulator. I think it's pretty standard, but still I have a question about the last few sentences in where it states that you might require appropriate remedial actions and that they may have other consequences. Could you elaborate a bit on that, please?
Yeah, I mean, typically, yeah, but we get often on-sites or reviews or audits and they then require. As a result of it, you get recommendations, but also sometimes requirements to say that, that supervisor, okay, now you have to do this or that. If you don't do that, or if you don't do it sufficiently, then they can increase your capital or impose an instruction or impose a fine. That's what we mean with may have other consequences. This is a standard clause that we have always put in for the last quarters.
Exactly. Okay, okay. Well, that's what I expected, but still. Can I ask another question? I saw that the provisions are down about 50%. Still, in the beginning, and you also said that there are still economic uncertainties. How do you, like, expect the provisions to go in the coming months, and do you expect NPLs to go up?
I'll give it to Ljiljana.
Hello, good morning, thank you for your question. The provisions for the second quarter are quite benign. This is the result of the two different dynamics. First one is we are managing our exposures on the book very well, so we are having some of the recovery and repayments better or higher than expected, including the successful de-risking of our Russian-related exposure, which all relates in positive impact when it comes to the provision. On the other side, we as well have the new provisions that are for this quarter, I would say not higher and not out of the range what we've seen previously for the new defaults. This means that we still see some uncertainty in the environment, which is, however, below the level that we have expected.
As Steven already mentioned, we are aware of the uncertainties and the facts that certain macroeconomic factors play in eventually later, and that's why we stay extremely vigilant when it comes to the affordability, specifically with respect to the cost of living and cost of doing business, and we keep an eye on developments in our portfolio.
Thank you.
Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one. As there are no further questions in the queue, I will hand the call back over to Mr. van Rijswijk for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Operator. To wrap up this call, we booked strong results despite ongoing challenging circumstances. Our customer numbers grew, as well as the volume of their business with us in areas like retail deposits, mortgages, and on the Wholesale Banking side, Daily Banking and Trade Finance. Expenses came down a little bit despite inflation and staff costs. Our risk costs were limited, but we remain vigilant as the cost of living and doing business rises for our customers. All in all, we look back at a strong first half of the year, and with that, we'll leave you for now. If you have any further questions, you know how to contact our media team. If not, we'll speak to you again next quarter. With that, we close off, and I wish you a great summer.
Thank you. That will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, ladies and gentlemen. You may now disconnect.