Good morning, and welcome to Bankinter first half 2021 earnings call. Our CFO, Jacobo Díaz, will now explain in detail the performance of the quarter. Thank you.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this Bankinter's earnings presentation for the second quarter of 2021. The related financial statements were posted on the website of the CNMV a few minutes ago, before market opens. All related documents can also be found at this time on the corporate website. Let me emphasize at the beginning that we have closed a first half with very positive results. A strong commercial performance reflected in volume growth and on balance sheet growth, and transmitted with a strong growth rate in our pre-provision profit. We consider this a remarkable performance despite a continued challenging environment during most of the first part of the year, with lockdowns and restriction of mobility that continue to impact in our main business and geographies. Here are some highlights of our achievements in the first half of 2021.
First of all, of course, during this quarter, it need to be highlighted a successful completion of the Línea Directa spin-off from the Bankinter Group, a very attractive operation for our shareholders and a very positive market welcome to the new quoted company. The financial impacts on the transaction has been reflected in the group's P&L account this quarter. Second, we've been successful in keeping positive growth rates in the balance sheet. In our loan portfolio, with a strong mortgage production in all geographies, as well as in retail deposits, and specifically in this year in our asset management activity, showing a strong recovery. As a result of this, both our net interest and fee income were able to post relevant rates of growth.
Third, the resilient net interest income quarter after quarter is supported by continued volume growth, as well as a recovered customer activity with individuals and corporates at the last part of the quarter. That resulted in an increase of our operating income by 6%. Four, the second quarter has also been good with a continued cost control and has allowed pre-provision profit of the group to grow strongly over 7%. Finally, asset quality that continue to show stable NPLs year-to-date with an increased coverage in provisions after last year extraordinaries. Finally, our solvency measured in terms of CET1 fully loaded ratio that maintains record levels above 12%. This is a comparison of our main financial indicator as of June 2020 and 2019. We think that these are good comparison to provide a much better indicator about the performance of our bank.
Group loans total book grew by 5% to EUR 67 billion, thanks to the strong corporate demand in 2020, and this mortgage loan book growth in this first half of the year. As well as the corporate loan book in this second part of the quarter, while consumer finance continue mostly stagnant. Growth over the first half of 2019 is 13% up. Gross operating income at EUR 915 million grew by 6% with respect to last year, and by 14% from 2019, showing a strong resilience in incomes coming mostly from the recurrent businesses. Despite the seasonal cost increase, we believe operating costs remain under control. Thus, our pre-provision profit posted improved growth rate over 7% and astonishing 18% since 2019. NPL ratio remained very low in line with all our asset quality indicators.
NPL at 2.35%, dropped by 16 basis points from a year ago, and 37 basis points from the first half of 2019. Coverage ratio after the recorded extraordinary provision of last year stands at a comfortable 62%. Group's net profit after the LDA spin-off, reached a record of EUR 1,140 million. Like for like, that is excluding this transaction, net profit would be EUR 245 million, growing by 124% from a year ago, when extraordinary provision took place for all banks. Similar - 3% to that of 2019 if we exclude the EUR 57 million extraordinary badwill from the EVO Banco transaction in that year. Our CET1 fully loaded capital ratio remains almost flat, 12.2%, despite the 50% reserve of dividends, standing at comfortably 44 basis points above last year and well above our long-term guidance of 11.5%.
Return on equity reflects the improved performance from last December and stands at 9.5%, maintained ahead of that of our domestic competitors and above our cost of capital. We will now kick off the usual agenda of our presentation. First our results, then risk management, to end with a brief review of the different businesses in the period. Here is the group P&L account for the first half 2021. As I mentioned, the accounting for Línea Directa recurring contribution till the month of April is at the bottom of the P&L net of taxes under discontinued operation. Then we include the extraordinary capital gain of EUR 896 million net of taxes and expenses of the transaction. Since May onwards, as they become an independent company, Bankinter will only get dividends coming from our 17.4% remaining stake accounted in the dividends line.
Once more, the group's income statement continue to show positive trend in all revenue lines. Group's net interest income maintains its growth trend after a positive seasonality and adjusted by the number of days in the quarter. There is a clear reflection of our lending growth and client margin resilience. It is up by over 4% from June 2020. Positive market environment and a clear pickup in our commercial activities supports our fee income. It grew close to 9% with respect to the previous year, in part due to the seasonality of the second quarter of every year. Other operating income and expenses at EUR 10.4 million were EUR 4 million higher than a year ago to another good quarter in trading income, and despite the annual increase of regulatory charges from Resolution Fund booked in this second quarter. Total gross operating income at EUR 915 million went up by 6% from 2020.
The quality of income growth remains very high with increased contribution from Portugal, EVO, and Avant Money, as we will see later in this presentation. Group operating costs remain under control in Spain and Portugal, though the group's total cost grew by over 4% with respect to June 2020, mainly due to the personal expenses that went up by over 8%. Please bear in mind or I remind you of the EUR 17 million regularization in first half of 2020. In the other hand, general and administrative expenses remain controlled with a small decrease. This positive income and cost performance allowed pre-provision profit to increase by over 7% from June 2020. What we think is a remarkable growth rate. Loan loss and other provisions are down 47% from first half 2020. Here, let me remind you of the EUR 193 million extraordinary provisions booked in the first half of 2020.
Without this effect, the provisions remain very much stable. After the sharp decrease in provision, pre-tax profits from the banking activity stands at EUR 288 million or 4.6 times that of 2020. The net results coming from Línea Directa brings an additional EUR 10 million to the group in the month of April, bringing the LDA contribution to the group during the first four months of 2021 amounted to EUR 40 million. After taxes group, net profit from the ordinary activity was EUR 245 million or 2.2 times that of June 2020. This is the amount available to be paid out by 50%, approximately as dividends for the year, 2021. In this quarter, we have booked close to EUR 900 million in the revaluation of the Bankinter 17.4% remaining stake in Línea Directa, net of taxes only by 1.5% approx, and of EUR 1.6 million of transaction expenses.
In this total net group, reached a historic record of EUR 1,140 million. All in all, after closing a very positive first half of the year in income volumes, cost, and in recurring cost of risk, we continue to feel optimistic about full year 2021. Due to the overall uncertainty of the evolution of credit risk, we are now confident to maintain the guidance of cost of risk for the rest of the year within a lower range of 40- 50 basis points. I will come back to this later. Here we present the P&L, the quarterly P&L, which shows the usual second quarter charge of the resolution fund in other income and expenses.
On the first quarter comparison, we can see a very positive growth pattern in net interest income and fee income, up 5% and 4% respectively, while operating costs increased only by 3% in the same period. Pre-provision profit decreased by 8% only due to the resolution fund charges in the quarter. After EUR 11 million higher credit risk provision, profit before taxes of banking activity has been only 21% down with respect to the first quarter of 2020. From the same quarter last year, net interest income shows a 7.5% increase and 11.7% increase in fees. Adding trading income and increased regulatory charges bring total income for the period up by 5.3% from the same period a year ago. Thanks to a 2% increase in operating cost, the pre-provision profit increased by 8.4% from the same quarter last year. Moving into balance sheet growth.
The group's loan book grew by 5.2% from a year ago, bringing over EUR 3.3 billion in new loans in the year to reach almost EUR 67 billion. Growth in this first half of EUR 2.5 billion comes mostly from our overall mortgage business, that now includes EVO Banco in Spain, also Portugal, and of course, Ireland. At the same time, as expected, loan demand in corporates and SMEs were negative, impacted by the end of the government programs for providing liquidity to the economy, and were able to grow their loan book only at the end of this second quarter. Second quarters always see a jump in lending from increased activity in corporates.
In this 2021, it occurred after the end of the lockdown with a good growth in the May-June period to reduce the gap from December 2020. Consumer loan books start a very contained recovery, mainly in personal loan to existing customers of the bank. In Spain, lending growth were able to maintain the pattern from previous year. It grew by 4% year-on-year, well over the 1% contraction for the sector, with data as of May 2021. In Portugal, lending is up by 6% from a year ago, with close to EUR 600 million from last December, slightly ahead of our business plan for the year. EVO was also able to grow their loan book by EUR 600 million year-on-year, thanks to a strong mortgage production that we will come back later again.
Retail deposits continue to perform strongly in all geographies, 11.5% year-on-year and EUR 7.1 billion- EUR 68.6 billion. Up 11% in Spain during the year, while the market only grew by 4.9%. In Portugal, deposits grew strongly in the year, or EUR 878 million since December. They have grown a remarkable 19% year-on-year to reach EUR 5.5 billion. Next slide. Net interest income continued to show resilience as we have anticipated. It grew by 7.5% over the same quarter a year ago, and over 5% from last quarter. We also include pre-COVID second quarter of 2019 for comparative purposes, showing a 13% increase in Bankinter and three times more in EVO. This is mainly due to being able to grow loan book every year, while maintain customer margin almost flat, as we will see in a minute.
In Portugal, net interest income grew by 7% with respect to the same period in 2020, and by 0.8% in respect to previous quarter. This growth trend in Portugal in net interest income is a consequence of our business plan, with yearly loan book growth in all of our three different loan books: mortgage, corporate, and consumer. Group's customer margin improved by 2 basis points from last quarter and 1 basis point from same quarter last year. This stable trend is due to an almost flat credit yields, only 1 basis point reduction in the year, and still 3 basis points reduction in the cost of deposits. After two quarters with the cost of deposit at all-time lows, we believe stable credit yields are the key to our customer margin resilience going forward.
We continue to suffer from a negative repricing of the mortgage loan book, although getting to an end by the third quarter, probably the fourth quarter. On the other hand, we are starting to see some asset mix improvement in corporate lending, with more weight in working capital facilities than in the long-term loan book with higher yields. Moving into ALCO portfolio. The group's ALCO portfolio remained with almost no change in the quarter. Its size decreased only by EUR 8.3 billion- EUR 8.6 billion. Its proportion between different portfolio is 75% sits under amortized cost with no impact in capital ratio, and the rest in fair value. Spanish government bonds continue to represent 55% on total, and 24% are other sovereigns, mainly Italy and Portugal. The portfolio's metrics improved in the quarter to average maturity 8.7 years, average duration of 4.7 years, and the average yield remains at 1.6%.
After some volatility in bond markets, unrealized gains on the portfolio amount to approximately EUR 530 million, down from last quarter. Only 20% of them sits on the fair value portfolio with a small impact in capital, as we will see later. Over the next few years, maturities of the portfolio are minimal, except EUR 1 billion in 2023. Fee income. Fee income performed very well in the quarter and is slightly ahead of our guidance for the full year. Quarterly fees were EUR 5 million over the previous quarter, continued to show growth of 4% and 12% over the same quarter last year. This quarter, all fees from our customer business show growth, including payment and collections, recovery from previous slowdown in activity. At the same time, assets under management enjoy another very good quarter, this is reflected in the strong performance.
The largest contributor to our fees with EUR 92 million is always asset management fees, which are up 23% year-on-year. A very strong commercial activity brings this topic to record levels at the end of the quarter, fueling these fees. The second contributor is fees from the bond and equity trading in our Broker Online, together with custody fees, growing by 18% to EUR 59 million in the period. Now we got in third position, payments and collections from corporates and individuals. Performance has been clearly recovered after being impacted by the slowdown in economy. This environment started to change at the end of the quarter, has made fees to grow by 8% from last year. Other relevant fees are FX with customers, that it went up 5%. Risk-related transactions went up at 17%, more stable life insurance and pension funds. That brings fees up by 8%.
In other operating income and expenses, in the next slide, you can see the main components of these miscellaneous. EUR 59 million of trading income plus dividends that compares very well from last year due to another quarter with good trading activity, plus EUR 4 million from the new first dividend from Línea Directa announced in the quarter. The 14% increase in regulatory charges of EUR 7 million more this year, together with other small miscellaneous impacts, such as lower opening fees from ICO loans production from last year, weighed on the other income expenses -EUR 9 million in the period. Gross operating income for the second quarter stood at EUR 450 million, an increase of 5% from a year ago, and more important, 13% from the same quarter in the pre-COVID 2019. Quarterly comparison is less relevant.
It went down by 3% from last year due to the regulatory charges booked in the quarter. In Portugal, gross operating income grew by 15% in the year, and quarterly grew by 3.8% from last quarter, and 21% from the same quarter last year, following very positive recurring business in our Portuguese branches and operations. Moving into cost. Group operating cost in the quarter totaled EUR 209 million. They are up by only 2% from the same quarter the previous year, and up EUR 6.6 million or 3% from the first quarter. Operating costs from EVO show a good performance that is expected to continue. They were reduced to EUR 12 million, down 14% from a year ago, and 20% down from previous quarter. In Portugal, costs are up 4% over last year, first half, while incomes grew by 15%, meaning an efficiency improvement to 56% cost-to-income ratio.
Group personal expenses are up 4% over the same quarter last year. Remember again, the EUR 17 million one-off adjustment of the variable pay in the first quarter of 2020. General and administrative expenses are under control, decreasing by close to 1% over last year. Efficiency continued to improve in the group. Cost-to-income dropped 870 percentile points from December 2020 to 46.4%, and 150 percentile points from a year ago. We plan to keep the long-term cost-to-income below 43%. To do so, we need to improve efficiency in our different new businesses and geographies. In Portugal, now efficiency stands at 56% from a 62% a year ago. In Ireland, Avant Money efficiency is at 58%. EVO, of course, improving, but still in negative efficiency. I want to remind you that our Spanish business standalone runs at a 40.6% efficiency ratio.
With all this, quarterly pre-provision profit show EUR 241 million, up 8% from 2020, and almost 18% above the 2019 figure. I guess this is a very remarkable performance. Cost of risk. We move into the cost of risk section. In the quarter, finished at 40 basis points of total credit exposures, with an increase of only 10 basis points from December, and a decrease of 3 basis points from the same quarter last year recurring cost of risk. Since Q3 2020, it follows a contained upward trend. Although total cost of risk remained almost flat year-over-year, there has been some increase from our consumer finance loan book, while the rest remain almost stable. In personal lending, mortgages, and large and mid corporates.
We expect this good behavior in the first two quarters to be slightly worse in the rest of the year, as we have seen some Stage 2 anticipated migration during the first half of the year, particularly in the Small and Medium Enterprises. The increase in the quarter of 5 basis points took place only in Spain, mostly related to consumer finance and to, as mentioned, the transition to Stage 2 positions. It is early to anticipate what will be the impact of a pickup in consumption during the summer season, we are somehow optimistic after the majority of the mortgage and consumption moratorium book has matured, the ICO liquidity lines for SMEs has been extended, as well as the government guarantees on them.
As we see things today, after a good first half and with the expected increase in cost of risk pushed to the second half, we have reviewed again our guidance of the cost of risk for the full year. Now between 40 and 50 basis points from the original 60 basis points at the beginning of the year, and from the range of 50- 60 that we shared with you at the end of the first quarter. After provisions and the LDA spin-off, net groups, net income stayed at EUR 1,140 million, a record and unparalleled figure. Without the extraordinary profit from Línea Directa transactions, net income would be of EUR 245 million, still up 124% from EUR 109 million a year ago, and below EUR 309 million in 2019 first half.
If we exclude the EUR 57 million of the badwill that we had in that year, net income is only down by 2.7%. With all this, at the end of June, Group's return on equity stands at 9.5%, still with the four-month contribution of Línea Directa, and excluding the extraordinaries from the accounting of the transaction. After closing the first half, we expect by year-end 2021 to reach a return on equity between 8%-9%, in line with our target to return to double-digit return on equity without Línea Directa as soon as in 2023. I will now go over our credit risk, liquidity, and solvency management. Non-performing loans continued our stable trend with total NPLs at EUR 1.73 billion, down by EUR 30 million from June 2020, mainly due to the annual NPL sales in Consumer Finance. NPLs grew EUR 49 million in the year.
Of this growth, EUR 50 came from consumer finance business. Other business in Spain, like mortgages and corporate, just came up by only EUR 9 million. Portuguese NPLs, in fact, came down EUR 10 million in the year. Once more, the growth in consumer finance and SMEs NPLs was somehow offset by reduction in other business segments, like corporates, mortgages, and affluent banking. The group's NPL ratio continued to trend down to 2.34%, lowest point since 2008, and 16 basis points lower from a year ago. It decreases 3 basis points from last year, mainly due to some growth in total risk exposure. In Spain, NPLs at 2.44% is 10 basis points below last year, and only 2 basis points up from December. This ratio continues to be way down from the sector average at 4.53%. In Portugal, NPL ratio declined to 1.89%, or only EUR 140 million of total NPLs.
As shown in the chart on the right, the group's NPL ratio went down to 2.3% for households and maintained stable for corporates. Total provision for non-performing loans after the extra provision build in 2020 is EUR 1.19 billion, up 5% from last year and 3% in December. All this had a relevant impact on our provisions coverage, which now stands at 62% from 59% last year. The coverage for foreclosed assets was also improved to 50%, a 9.4% increase, and clearly above the average discounts of our sold assets. The group's foreclosed asset portfolio is 20% smaller than a year ago, decreased by EUR 52 million from the previous year, and now accounts for EUR 207 million. Our fully loaded CET1 ratio finished the quarter at 12.20%, a small decrease of 8 basis points from last quarter and 45 basis points higher from a year ago.
Since December, our retained earnings brings an increase of 38 basis points, taking into consideration accrual dividends at 50% of earnings and the positive contribution from the Línea Directa spin-off of 5 basis points. Capital consumption of risk-weighted assets from the business has been very strong, 31 basis points, due to the loan growth book that we mentioned in this second quarter, mainly since the month of May. Valuation adjustments brings a - 7 basis points due to the market volatility in our ALCO portfolio. Insurance increases by 6 basis points after the impact of Línea Directa spin-off. The implementation of the new IRB parameters in our models took another -14 basis points in the entire year for a total of -9 basis points impact in the quarter. Total capital ratio stands at 15.6%, very comfortable level. Leverage ratio at 5.1%.
MREL ratio at 22.1%, quite above 18.7% requirement for 2022. Funding gap. Funding gap continues to be negative, from EUR 1 billion a year ago to a -EUR 2.5 billion of commercial gap. The increased negative gap in Spain more than offset the one coming from Portugal and Ireland. As a result, loan-to-deposit ratio at record levels of 95.7% from 101% a year ago. Let's review some performance of business lines. Here you can see the diversification of income sources. No major changes. We have a good balance between the main contributors, corporate and commercial banking together represent close to 60%, and now 13% is coming from our consumer finance subsidiary. You see investment banking with 9%, Portugal 8%, Irish business 3%, and EVO Banco is 1%.
Moving on, the corporate and SME loan book in Spain and Portugal grew over 2% year-on-year, in a very difficult start of the year for corporates loan demand. It increased by 1.4% in Spain, while the sector is now again contracting their loan book by 2.3% year-on-year. This will make corporate loan book for banks in Spain to shrink again this year after an exceptional 2020 with EUR 100 billion in government guarantee ICO financing. The first quarter loan book reduction, like every year, was recovered with EUR 4.9 billion, or 3% growth in the quarter, to reach EUR 29 billion loan book. Thanks to this seasonal pickup, we have increased our market share to 5.2% from 5% a year ago.
In Spain, loan growth over June last year by business segment has been EUR 424 million in mid-corporates, EUR 217 million in SMEs, and a reduction of EUR 293 million in large corporations due to their extra liquidity position. In Portugal, where we have been growing our market share in corporate lending year after year, it now stands at over 2%. This trend continues since our corporate loan book went up 7% in the year and 5% in the quarter, reaching EUR 2 billion at the end of June. Let's move into sources of income of the corporate segment. International trade and supply chain finance continued to grow its balance sheet. Its loan book, mainly in short-term working capital financing, grew by 3.5% from last year to EUR 6.2 billion, with almost no NPLs. Transactional business with corporates finally recovered on the last part of the quarter from a very stagnant situation.
Payments and collection end up 1% and 3% respectively from last year, generating EUR 40 million in incomes in the first half. Finally, investment banking. That has closed another first half of the year with a very good performance in revenues. Investment banking loan book of EUR 3.9 billion has grown 10% since December, with a new net production of EUR 811 million. Here we see what's the situation of the ICO financing. We show again Bankinter's participation in the ICO financing for corporate and SMEs as of June 2021. Total ICO loans with the state guarantee disbursed were EUR 6.6 billion. All these loans have been granted mainly in medium and small corporates, and the rest to large corporates. Total limits of EUR 8.8 billion of ICO loans have been signed with Bankinter customers.
From this total, 38% have been asking for restructuring of the loan in maturities or a grace period, also extending the guarantee and improving rate conditions. On moratoriums for mortgages and consumer individuals, they have almost come to an end and are at EUR 123 million as of June. Remember that they have never represented more than 2% of the loan book in Spain. Since January, we have signed EUR 132 million of new moratoriums only related to the tourism and transportation sectors. NPLs on the amortized one has been 2.9%, and for the EUR 255 million current ones, NPL stands at a very low rate. I think this is a remarkable performance compared to industry benchmarks. Moratoriums in consumer finance are negligible, both in Spain, Ireland, and in Portugal.
In Portugal, where moratoriums were more relevant and include corporate loans as well, they represent 12% of total portfolio from larger figures some quarters ago, EUR 512 million in mortgages and EUR 365 million in corporates, all of them maturing in September. In wealth management, customer assets continue to grow due to strong commercial activity with a positive market effect, adding both business, private, and personal banking. Assets under management increased by circa EUR 12.7 billion in patrimony under management in 12 months, EUR 8 billion in private banking and EUR 4.7 billion in personal banking. The strong commercial activity measured by net new money in the first half shows a total of EUR 6.7 billion increase, split EUR 4.2 billion in private banking and EUR 2.5 billion in personal banking. Market effect has also been benign in the period, thanks to recovery of the markets. Activity in our commercial retail banking during the first half has been very strong.
In fact, customer acquisition in Spain in the period grew by 49% from that of a year ago. Salary account balances in Spain continue to grow. They are up 24% from a year ago, totaling over EUR 14 billion. Mortgage origination over the period of EUR 3 billion outperformed every year first half and represents an increase of 1.7 times from the first half of 2020, and even more relevant, 1.6 times more than the last record in the first half 2019. Bankinter holds a good market share in the front and in back book, despite a better quality of loans, where 72% of mortgages were fixed rate and their average loan-to-value ratio is at 62%. In Spain, our market share in new mortgage during the last 12 months is at 7.5%.
Those are total mortgage book keep growing and reach EUR 30 billion, an increase of 7.8% in Spain, while the rest of the market only grew by 0.1%. The loan-to-value of the total book stands at a comfortable 54%. Our asset management business maintain its growth trend in the three categories: mutual funds, 22% up; year-on-year pension funds, 16%; and patrimony service, 21%. In mutual funds, net new money in the first half has grown by EUR 4.8 billion. That, together with the positive market effects, bring the total to EUR 27.7 billion. A new record. Bankinter Consumer Finance includes, as you know, business in Spain, Portugal, and Ireland. It's including also the recent mortgage production in this country. At the end of June, total loan book remained slightly up from last December and 9% up from a year ago to a total of EUR 3.1 billion.
Of them, 59% are personal loans and 41% credit card lending. The breakdown of the total loan book by geography includes EUR 600 million coming from Ireland Avant Money, growing at 39% from last year, and EUR 275 million from Bankinter Portugal, which grows 22%. The rest is Spain, where the loan book grew by only 1%, mainly in personal loans to Bankinter customers, despite the reduction of EUR 48 million in revolving credit card outstanding. Here you see the breakdown of the loan book by product. Personal loans represent 55%, growing 9%. Transactor credit cards, mainly with Bankinter clients, represent 23% of total or EUR 700 million with 10% growth. Open market revolving credit cards is now 16% of total loan book and less than EUR 500 million in outstanding after a decrease of 19% of last year.
The new home mortgages in Ireland reach EUR 145 million and represents now 5% of the total loan book. Total new credit origination, mainly in personal loans and Irish mortgage, represents EUR 626 million, and total number of customers grew by 3% to 1,784 million. In Spain, credit card business represents 40% of the EUR 2.1 billion and 60% are revolving, 24% of the total. The rest of the cards are payable at the end of the month with a much better risk profile that finance customers. We continue to see good prospects for this business and feel very comfortable with the asset quality indicators of this riskier business. NPL ratio stands in June as 7.4% from 7.2% a year ago, or EUR 227 million in total NPLs. Cost of risk at 3.6% lower than the 5.3% in June 2020.
This is a pure digital business with efficiency ratios of 21% in Portugal and less than 20% in Spain, that we intend to improve in the three geographies as soon as the economies start to recover. Continue with Ireland. They have started to underwrite mortgages under the commercial name of Avant Money. This new activity has been able to increase the loan book by EUR 125 million year-to-date, and has made possible to maintain their very good asset quality ratio, with NPLs very low at 0.7%, and cost of risk extremely low at 1.555%, with a coverage provision of 400%. Portugal loan book grew by 6% to EUR 6.8 billion. Retail funds, EUR 5.5 billion, up 19%. The growth in the loan book was again in corporate, 7%, as well as in retail with a 5%. Our balance sheet reached EUR 3.9 billion, a 14% increase.
As the income statement, operating income grew by 15%. Costs stay quite contained, with a 4% growth in line with the plans of efficiency. Efficiency ratio, as I mentioned before, at 56% from 62% last year. All the above brings pre-provision profit up very strong, 33% over June 2021. Finally, after EUR 7 million of normalized loan loss provisions, including a positive impact of EUR 2.6 million of extraordinary recovery, Portugal profit before taxes reached EUR 26 million, a remarkable 50% increase from last year. Moving to EVO. EVO has been very much focused towards a significant increase in mortgage lending that has been reflected in a strong commercial activity. New mortgages granted from December were a record of EUR 376 million. This is 2.5 times the origination of last year first half, making the mortgage loan book to jump EUR 1.5 billion.
Subsequently, net interest margin from customer activity jumped also 20% from June 20. Customer margin stands at 1.03, NPL at 1.06, only EUR 17 million in NPLs with a coverage of 61%. Cost of risk is only 14 basis points. We're coming to an end. Just to recap, our main achievements in the quarter, we believe are, first of all, a very strong commercial activity reflected in volume growth with an increased pre-provision profit growth. In a very complex still environment, we continue with our efforts in cost to remain under control to be able to support pre-provision profit growth. We think we still have very strong solvency and liquidity levels, with record liquidity levels and keeping a comfortable buffer from regulatory requirements ahead of the next EBA stress test. For the future, we also expect growth in all geographies.
Portugal in both commercial and corporate banking, Ireland to keep growing in mortgages, also recovering the consumer finance as well, in EVO, in mortgage production and customer acquisition. We expect for Spain corporate loan book to recover from the impact of ICO financing, thanks to increased activity and corporate demand after the summer, as well as continued loan growth in mortgage lending and in other non-mortgage retail lending. At the end of the year, net interest income for the group will show at least low single digit growth despite difficult interest rate environment. The increase in activity and more stable markets will make fee income to continue grow in the range of mid-single digit. We do expect groups operating income to grow in mid-single digit.
Cost should remain flattish in 2020, meaning more willingness to grow if incomes do the same or is likely higher if the expected performance is better than expected. With the objective of pre-provision profit to remain resilient and improve the growth of 2020. Finally, cost of risk after a very benign first half and with a very comfortable loan book, with no need of additional provisions ahead of a slow recovery scenario, will range, as I did mention before, between 40 and 50 basis points at the end of the year. Now, I am very happy to take your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jacobo. We probably had some follow-up questions already. You had just mentioned you had probably answered many of those, but nevertheless, let's reframe. Can you do just a very quick recap on the outlook for the main P&L lines for the end of the year? Also just quick confirmation on the changes of the guidance that we have already commented on.
Sorry, I had my microphone off.
Okay.
I will come back again. Net interest income for the group will show at least low single-digit growth despite the difficult interest rate environment. Fee income, we continue to grow or to expect growth in the range of mid-single digit. Group's operating income, we expect in the mid-single digit, like in 2020. Group's cost, we expect to keep them flattish or slightly higher if the performance is better than expected. Pre-provision profit, we expect to remain resilient and improve the growth that we saw in 2020.
Cost of risk at 40- 50 basis points. I think that your question is which are the main changes, and I basically will focus on the cost of risk. Cost of risk guidance has been changing across the year. We started in January sharing with you our expectation of a figure around 60 basis points. In the first quarter, in April, and trying to be some prudent, because it's still too early with this current micro scenario, we share with you a guidance of a range between 50 and 60 basis points. Today, in July, we reduce our guidance for the year, again, in a range of 40- 50 basis points. This is only based on the reality that we are seeing today in this institution, where the cost of risk is much better than expected.
Even if we do expect a slight deterioration in months ahead due to just prudent activity, this is the reason why we think it will be somewhere between 40-50 basis points.
Thank you. Very clear. Any visibility for 2022? You know I had to make this answer.
I know. As far as the impact of the cost of risk is delaying or lagging, we should say that 2022 should be even better than 2021. The most diluted is the impact of this crisis, the better impact we have on NPLs. As we share with you, NPLs are not growing as we were expecting. They have grown just EUR 50 million in the year. In opposite, what we're trying to be prudent is increasing the Stage 2 positions. That, as you've seen, they have increased by around EUR 500 million in the year, and these are the main catalyst of the cost of risk of this year.
Thank you. Moving now on loan growth. We had a few questions on what are the main drivers of the performance in the quarter?
Okay. Yes, the loan book has grown in all the geographies and in all the business, even from an annual comparison, but also from a quarterly comparison. That means that we have grown, in this quarter, the book of the group by EUR 2.2 billion, which is 3.5%. From an annual perspective, we have grown 5%, which is EUR 3.3 billion. Since December, we have grown EUR 2.5 billion, which is almost 4%. We have grown in all geographies. In Spain, this quarter, we've grown almost EUR 1.8 billion, 3%. We have grown in Portugal, 2%, in Ireland, 17%, in EVO, 12%, et cetera. Even in consumer finance. The perception is that this quarter has been extremely good. There is no reason why we should change our perspective in the future. The businesses where we've been putting more focus are, as you know, mortgages.
Mortgages have present a new production record high in this quarter with very good performance in Spain, in Ireland, in EVO, and in Portugal. We have a new production of more than EUR 3 billion for the first time ever, the quarter has been a new record. In consumer finance, what we've seen is there is a slight recovery in this business, and I'm sure that in this third quarter, especially in Ireland, we will see a much better activity. This is basically because the lockdown has been longer, for example, than in other countries. We do expect positive news in this quarter. The use of credit cards is also a reality, and this is something that you see just in the fees. The level of fees of payment and collection is clearly increasing. In loans and, of course, in consumer finance, loans are growing.
As I did mention, there is a strong focus in Bankinter clients, which have much better risk profile, and this is the reason why the book is growing. Let me end up with corporates. Corporates, we have perceived that in Spain, since the end of the lockdown or since the end of the state of alarm in Spain in mid-May, that there is a recovery in transaction activity and in working capital funds. International business has also improved during the last part of this second quarter. That also we've seen that these ICOs loans have extended their maturity and their grace period, and has supported the level of the loan book.
We had a few follow-ups specifically on the corporate book. What are your expectations in terms of reaching the target for TLTRO, the benchmark that we have by the end of this year, and also your expectations in terms of NextGeneration funds for loan growth in the corporate book?
In terms of complying with the TLTRO program, as of today, we are largely compliant. This is not a concern as of today. There is a prospect that, of course, we will meet the requirements of this TLTRO program without any concern. Related to the NextGenerationEU funds, we know they have been, or very close to release a very small amount of these funds. We are optimistic about a larger release of funds in the second part of the year, although we think this will happen at the end of the year. I guess that in the fourth quarter, we will have a much better idea or probably a much better sense of what will be the impact. We are optimistic because the funds are there, and we know that the funds will come.
In terms of timing, we have more uncertainty, and we do expect some signals probably at the fourth quarter of this year.
Very clear. Thank you. To finish off with the corporate book, can you put some color on the extensions on the ICO loans?
Yes. Regarding the ICO loans, that you know we have a limit of EUR 8.8 billion and disbursed around 75%, which is EUR 6.6 billion. We have extended either the term of the loan or either the grace period, for around 38% of those amounted figures. Okay? I believe this is not a very high figure. There are benchmarks that we know that the average in the industry might be above 50%. We feel very comfortable with the level that we have achieved of additional extensions. Let me remind you that the grace period now comes to a two-year period, and the first maturities of that we will see in probably the second quarter of next year, and the terms of the loans have been extended up to eight years as the largest.
Thank you. Moving now on to revenues. We had a few follow-ups on the NII performance in the quarter. You can go through the moving parts in the quarter. Thank you.
Yes. In this quarter, we have several impacts. The first of them, which is the contrary of what we said the first quarter, is the number of days. This quarter has a larger number of days than the first one. This is the first contributor. We have a larger production in mortgages, that we have shared with you, has been a new record high. These mortgages have been largely at a fixed rate, and that provides another additional boost that helps us to compensate the repricing or the negative repricing of the variable rate mortgage portfolio. Also, as we did mention, we have a higher level of credits and short-term funding to our corporate banking business. That means that we have a much better mix in corporate banking than we used to have in previous quarter and a very good rate.
In addition, we are continue to recover the cost of deposits from an institutional client our largest corporations. Again, this is an additional figure. Due to the extension of the ICOs, we also have new income of the updating of the prices of the loans that have been extended. Those elements provides a much better profile of the net interest income in this period. TLTRO, from an annual perspective, is providing probably EUR 20 million more in the total 2021 compared to the total 2022. This is more or less the main topics that are contributing to the growth in this quarter.
Okay. Can you quantify the impact on the NII, specifically on the extensions of the ICO loans and also flipping the coin, whether there's any impact also on the fee income?
Yes, of course. The cost of the new extensions have been around EUR 7 million, which are in fees payable or payable fees, around EUR 7 million. The exact same figure is recorded as higher net interest income. Of course, we have updated all these costs, or we have reflected all these costs in our client's position. This has generated impact of a positive EUR 7 million. Of course, positions of these extended ICO transactions have been updated for the future as well as of the cost.
Excellent. A few more questions on revenues here. Can you confirm by how much increased the contribution to the Single Resolution Fund this year?
For the group, it's been around EUR 41 million-EUR 42 million in this quarter, which is again, around EUR 6 million more than a year ago.
Thank you. Can you confirm if we are already accounting for the dividend of Línea Directa in Q2?
Yes, we have recorded in the dividends line around EUR 4.6 million in dividend. Yesterday, Línea Directa published their first time results and mentioned that the payout of this dividend has been 90%. This is good news.
Thank you. Moving now into asset quality. We had a couple of questions regarding whether we have any updates on the moratoriums in Portugal.
Yes. Moratoriums in Portugal are improving. We have, as of today, around EUR 200 million less than we have at the beginning. Today, only 11% of the mortgage portfolio is under moratoria. It used to be close to 15%. We are today, as I did mention, at EUR 512 million of mortgages under moratoria. In the corporate loan book, it has EUR 365 million under moratoria. The total accounts for below EUR 900 million, while the original value was almost EUR 1.05 billion. That means that it has been reduced somewhere around EUR 150 million and EUR 200 million in this period.
Perfect. Regarding credit provisions, whether you can explain why are they going up in the quarter-on-quarter, obviously?
Yes. From NPL point perspective, NPLs are growing due to consumer finance. From a Stage 2 performance, which is how to be prudent in case things are deteriorating in the future, we are trying to put more focus on the corporate of the corporate world. Therefore, the majority of the cost of risk, there is a large proportion of corporates. I would say around, I don't know, 50% are corporate cost of risk and around 40% of consumer finance cost of risk. Basically, the amount of Stage 2 positions are focused on the corporate world.
Okay. What would be the outlook in terms of peak of NPLs for the end of the year? Also, related to that, the cost of risk trend for the second half?
We are in a very uncertain macro scenario. It's very difficult for us. We prefer to be prudent, and if we had a EUR 50 million increase in the first part of the year, we believe that the NPLs might grow in the second part of the year, somewhere between EUR 50 million and EUR 100 million. This is our best guess right now. I think it's still too early to know which is a good figure for that. That's why we wanted to reduce the cost of risk guidance that we share with you to 40-50 basis points. That's why we think that the third quarter and the fourth quarter should have a higher cost of risk, because the level of uncertainty is still very high, and we prefer to be prudent.
Thank you. In terms of other provisions and litigation, what can we expect from the next following quarters?
Yes. Litigation costs are known mainly from the FX mortgage book. These provisions are, as we do see since two years ago, it's a slight decrease, somewhere between 10% and 20% year after year. This mortgage FX litigation risk is slowly reducing, although it is the majority of the provision, and therefore volumes go down very slowly. We do have the revolving issue litigation, and we do have the mortgage expenses litigations. That is still uncertain for the end of the year. We should expect anyway, a slight reduction. In total year, it should be lower than the previous year, somewhere between 10% and 20%. Again, the path of reduction will be slow.
Okay. We move to capital now. First question, related to the spinoff of Línea Directa, whether you can confirm if we had booked any positive mark-to-market of the Línea Directa stake, and also the total impact of the spinoff?
Yes. The total impact in basis points of the spinoff is 5 basis points. Yes, there is a revaluation of the Línea Directa since, as you know, the accounting value at the spinoff date was around EUR 250 million. Today, this value is somewhere around EUR 330 million-EUR 340 million. Therefore, there is a revaluation that is shared under the insurance and others bucket that we have put in our slide. I remind you that also the increase in the valuation of this stake increased the risk-weighted assets. There is a net effect between the unrealized gains, which have increased, and the higher risk-weighted assets coming from the consumption of this participation.
Okay. We had a question about what are the main drivers of the risk-weighted assets in the quarter, and also if any other moving parts that you want to highlight.
Okay. In the quarter, mainly we have the return earnings and the 5 basis points Línea Directa contribution spin-off. As we did mention, the ALCO portfolio has been deteriorated, and in your package you will see 4 basis points negative impact. The IRB is basically stable, the IRB deficit, sorry, on new regulations. We have the insurance and other, we have a positive effect, which is exactly what I did just mention about the revaluation of the stake of Línea Directa, slightly compensated with higher consumption of this stake. In the quarter, we have also the consumption, the risk-weighted asset consumption of the growth of the loan book, which has been extremely high.
In combination with this higher consumption in this quarter of the book, and as I did mention also, there is a strong corporate banking growth there, which a higher consumption than, for example, the mortgage book. There is also an increase in the counterparty risk and the market risk, which should be a one-off impact due to the new articles in the BRRD, which doesn't really make huge difference.
Thank you. Regarding dividends, two questions. How much dividend accrual are we doing, and also what are your expectations, your views on dividend payments?
Dividend accrual is at 50%. We've been doing this since the first quarter, we have a total accrual of 50% for the first half of the year. Regarding the distribution of dividends, I do believe that tomorrow there will be a public information about dividends, and we, of course, whatever will be allowed, this is something that we will do and we will respect. We will need to wait until tomorrow, although, as you can imagine, we are optimistic about the possibility of distributing dividends.
Thank you. Can you remind us of what's our capital target?
We normally provide a guidance CET1 ratio of 11.5%. We know that today why we are higher due to the current environment situation. Today we were at 12.3%, today we are 12.2%. Both figures are extremely high for us due to our risk profile. We are very comfortable with these levels. We think we will be navigating with figures above 12% for the coming quarters until the environment comes back to a total normalization.
Okay. two last questions, promise. Private banking, what are your growth expectations for the second half?
For private banking, if markets volatility respect us and there are no major surprises or no major uncertainty regarding markets, we do still view a positive second half of the year. We think with all our growth is based on commercial activity, it's on commercial onboarding of new clients. There is no reason why this should change in the second part of the year. We have reached a very good performance. We are acquiring a good number of new clients. We are able to switch a lot of account balances resources into value products like mutual funds, investment funds, even stocks, et cetera, or discretionary portfolios, unit links. We have a good set of products adapted for the private banking activity, which are successful, and there is no reason why we should see any change in this perspective.
Thank you. Last one. Any thoughts on the 2023 targets after this first half?
Our only thoughts is to comply with our commitment of reaching in 2023 our 2019 net income figure of EUR 550 million. We think this is an achievable target. It's not going to be easy, of course, but I think we are fully committed, the entire organization, to reach this target. The efficiency ratio, I think it's key to reach this target, and I think that we are delivering good results in efficiency ratio that will provide pre-provision profit growth to be able to reach that figure. We've seen that Portugal is improving very well efficiency ratio. We've seen Spain, which is performing very well. We see a good trend in EVO, and we see good trends in Ireland. As far as we meet a good efficiency ratio that we commit to around 43% by 2023, I'm sure that we will meet that target.
Rest assured that we will do everything to reach that 2023 public commitment.
Excellent. Thank you, Jacobo. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. That was all from us. Feel free, obviously, as usual, to contact the investor relations teams for any further questions. Many thanks. Goodbye.
Thank you very much, all of you. We are open to any questions since now in our usual format. Thanks to the IR team of Bankinter, Alfonso and David, that have once again performed an outstanding job. Thank you very much. Keep safe. Bye-bye. See you in October.