Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Banquinta Full Year's 2020 Results Presentation. Our CFO, Jacob O'Diaz, will now comment the figures in detail, and we will follow-up with a Q and A session afterwards. Thank you.
Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of Bancinter's earnings for the Q4 and the full year 2020. 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 Bancinter corporate website. Let me start by pointing out that we ended the year 2020 with a strong performance reflected in pre provisioning profit growth, considering the very special circumstances of the year and their impact on all our businesses and geographies. Now I will review our business activities in the quarter and the full year as usual.
And at the end of the presentation, I will provide some guidance Our future evolution in 2021. To start, let me highlight some of our main achievements in 2020. In our loan portfolio, in retail deposits, in assets under management, therefore, net interest and fee income, The main contributors to incomes were able to grow despite the difficult environment. All this, together with a tight cost control, has allowed Pre provisioning profit to grow 4.5% in the mid single digit range of our guidance. We continue to strengthen solvency, NPL coverage and liquidity with flat NPLs year on year.
Indeed, our Z1 fully loaded ratio reaches record levels over 12%. In this last quarter of the year, there has been no extraordinary items of size, excluding the annual contribution to the guarantee fund as well as other taxes on deposits booked in the quarter. As usual, let's start with a brief comparison of the full year 20 2019 in our key financial indicators. Group's total loan book grew by almost 7% to €64,400,000,000 Thanks to the strong corporate and SME demand and a moderate mortgage loan book growth, while consumer finance continued to show contraction. Gross operating income at €1709,000,000 grew by close to 4% with respect to last year, Showing a strong resilience in incomes coming from the business in very difficult times.
After a recurrent cost control that makes cost growth Below income growth, pre provisioning profit posted solid growth of 4.5% in probably one of the most difficult years ever. NPL ratio shows improvement in our asset quality despite the difficult economic situation during the year at 2.37%. It dropped by 14 Basis points from a year ago. Coverage ratio after the recorded EUR242,000,000 of extraordinary provision It stands at 61%, a 27% increase over last year. Group's net profit stands at 3 €17,000,000 a 42% decrease from a year ago.
Our CET1 capital ratio also improved by 67 basis points to 12.3%. It stands comfortably above our guidance of 11.5%. Our return on equity reflects the exceptional situations and shows a 7%, most probably clearly ahead of our domestic competitors. Without such extraordinary provisioning, it will be at 10.8% and continue above our cost of capital. Finally, the tangible book value per share at €5.24 grew by 7% in the year.
Let's follow the usual agenda for quarterly presentations. First of our 4th quarter and full year results, Then risk management during the period to end with a review of the business developments in the year. Here are the group's comparative P and L Accounts for the full year 2020 with the new accounting for Eredia at the bottom of discontinued operations. We think at this point in time that twenty '21 will be the last year of Linea Directa contribution to the group as such, although we don't know exactly when in the year. Once they will become an independent company, Bancinter will still get dividends from its remaining participation.
Now our income statement reveals very positive trends in the two main lines of revenue, net interest income and fee income. Group's net interest income maintains a very positive trend Despite the increasing negative environment for interest rates in the year, this is due to our lending growth and client margin resilience. It is up by 6.8% Or €79,000,000 more than 2019 with an 1.8% increase since last quarter. These rates will be 4% and 1.6%, respectively, without Evo and Avancard. The progressive recovery of commercial activity after Summer and the much better market environment did support our fee income growth.
Therefore, fee income finished by the finished the year growing by 3.7% with respect to the previous one, with an increase of 21% from the previous quarter and 4.2% from the same quarter last year. Other operating income and expenses of a negative €34,700,000 We're much lower than a year ago due to the main factors: lower trading income in the year of EUR 17,000,000 and the usual increased contribution to the single resolution fund, guarantee Fund, guarantee fund and other regulatory charges in the year, around €20,000,000 additional or an increase of 21. Thus, total gross operating income reached EUR 1709,000,000 up by 3.6% from 2019. Without Avanavancar, income still grew by close to 2%, and the quality of such growth in income remains very high As the weight from extraordinary income coming from Portugal was reduced to €3,500,000 at almost €2,000,000 lower than last year. Group operating costs continue under control in both Spain ex EVO and Portugal, thus the group was still able to improve their efficiency level.
Costs from the Evo and Avancar operations are not comparable year on year since they are for 12 months in 2020 and only 7 months last year. In total, they grew only by 2.7 percent year on year, only €22,000,000 more. On a like for like basis, the group cost remained almost flat with respect to the previous year. This positive income and cost performance through the year allowed pre provisioning profit to increase by 4.5% from a year ago. Like for like growth is up by almost 3% from year ago.
Loan loss and other provisions are up 37% from 2019. Let me remind you of the only contributors to this increase. One is Portugal due to the anticipated normalization of cost of risk From the finishing of extraordinary recoveries of previously provisioned loans acquired from Barclays. Another It's the expected rise in cost of risk from the consumer finance business and finally, the provisions for our contingency litigation, etcetera. After this increase in provisions, profits for the recurrent banking activities stands at €473,000,000 only 13% below 2019.
As we have announced in previous quarter, we booked an extraordinary credit risk provision to fulfill the macroeconomic scenario of Banco Spain on IFRS 9 models, thus recording €242,000,000 in the year that we do not expect to repeat in 2021. After this extraordinary provision and also taking into consideration last year one off badwills arising from the Evo and Avankar integration, Pretax profits of the banking activity spends at €231,000,000 a reduction of 62% from last year. Like for like reduction will be 56%. Pretax profits coming from LDA brings an additional €180,000,000 to the group in the year or an increase of 26% from 2019. This shows a very strong performance of insurance business in the year that we will analyze later on the presentation.
After taxes, the group posted a net profit of €317,000,000 a decrease of 42% from a year ago. Like for like, without Evonavancard, net profit should be €455,000,000 and a decrease of 38%. Group's provisioning profit growing at a close to 4.5% clearly indicates the resilient growth in our customer activities and geographies. Let's move on. The group loans book grew by 6.6% from a year ago, bringing in over €4,000,000,000 in new loans Here, you got the slide now.
To reach €64,400,000,000 This growth comes mostly from our business in Spain during this period, €3,000,000,000 Approximately and mainly incorporates and SMEs showing a relevant impact from the government programs for restoring the economy, namely the equal liquidity lines Of credit, 7% is the annual cumulative rate of growth for the last 5 years, clearly outperforming our sector. In net terms, this 4th quarter look sorry, this quarter loan book grew by over €1,000,000,000 in Spain And the rest in other geographies, mainly in credit, mortgages, working capital facilities and loans. In Spain, Lending growth rates improved from the previous quarter. It grew by 6.1% year on year, well over the minus 2 0.4% of the sector as of November 2020, bringing market share increases in both household and corporate loan books. For corporates, loan growth has been 9.8% year on year or €2,400,000,000 This growth was different in customers with eco loans, plus 37% and those without eco lines, a decrease of 3%.
Also by segment growth was more balanced. Large corporates had EUR 900,000,000 mid corporates EUR 800,000,000 ISM is only €600,000,000 all with the ECO guarantee lines. On the right side, retail deposits continued to perform strongly in all geographies, up 12.4 percent year on year or €7,200,000,000 to €65,000,000,000 Moving into net interest income. NII continued to show very good resilience. It grew by 3.5% over the same quarter A year ago and by 1.8% from last quarter.
This is mainly due to being able to reduce by 30% the year interest expenses, Cost of deposits and debt, while keeping growing the interest earned, thanks to volume growth and asset yield resilience. The like for like Growth rates are similar since the contribution of Eva Navankar to our net interest income continued to be small, although growing every quarter. They contribute with over €19,000,000 to the group NII this quarter versus €17,000,000 the previous one. In Portugal, NII also grew by strong by 11%, quite strong figure, with respect to the same quarter in 2019 and by 1% in respect to the previous quarter, with a small impact from extraordinary recoveries in the quarter. The 7% annual cumulative rate of growth for the last 5 years in net interest income is mainly driven by loan book growth together with Keeping resilient the customer margin.
Customer margin improved by 4 basis points from last quarter, thanks to yield 4 basis points increase on the back of eco loans pricing. The 13 basis points decrease year on year is almost Excluding due to the reduction in consumer finance yields, together with important reduction in the U. S. Dollar LIBOR reference rate funding and yields in our international business. Cost of deposits helped with an additional one basis point improvement in the year.
After a year with the cost of deposits at all time lows, we believe that stable credit yields are the Key to our customer margin to remain resilient in the coming quarters. We continue with a positive repricing of deals on the mortgage loan book front versus bank books and also asset mix with more corporate lending weight than in the rest of the loan book. The composition of our ALCO portfolio changed very little in the year. Its size increased by €800,000,000 to €8,500,000,000 It's proportioned between different portfolios in Peru. Today, 75% of the portfolio remains under amortized cost with no impact in capital ratio and 25% in fair value.
Still, Spanish government bonds represent 55% of total together with 22% of severance, mainly Italy and Portugal. The portfolio's average maturity is 8 years with an average duration of 4.4 years, and its average yield stands at 1.5. After a much better end of the year in bond markets, we have seen growth in the unrealized gains of the portfolio. Now they amount Approximately to €700,000,000 up for last year, 80% correspond to the amortized portfolio and 20% to the Fair value portfolio. Over the next few years, maturities of the portfolio are well spread out and not relevant in every year, as you can see in the right hand side.
Fee income. Fee income performed in line with our guidance for the full year and after a 4th quarter with the seasonal increase in activity levels. Thanks to this, last quarter fee income was €24,000,000 above the previous quarter, but it continued to show growth of 4% over the same quarter of last year. For the full year, it reaches €497,000,000 for the full year, a 4.5% increase over 2019. The largest contributor to fee income with €157,000,000 continue to be asset management fees, 25% of total fees charged and up By 2% in the year, commercial activity recovered after the lockdown and the 2nd summer wave, Also helped by markets and our banking IUMs that recovers levels pre COVID crisis during the last quarter.
The 2nd largest contributor to fee income with €111,000,000 is payments and collections, which includes credit cards. This performance has been clearly impacted by the slowdown in the post summer season, and it has been limited to a 6% decrease for the year on the back of our increasing home online banking activity and some improvement in the international trade finance. As mentioned, a much more stable market situation has provided positive impacts on fees from bonds and equity trading in our broker online, growing at 22% in the year to €98,000,000 In other operating income and expenses, here you You can see the main components of this line. During the year, the EUR 68,000,000 of trading income plus dividends this year were reduced by almost EUR 9,000,000 from last year due to the lower Trading volumes and the 21% increase in regulatory charges or €20,000,000 weighted on the other expenses for the year, totaling €115,000,000 2.2x the charges 5 years ago. Gross operating income for the full year stood at EUR 1709,000,000 an increase of 3.6% from a year ago.
Quarterly operating income of €413,000,000 grew by less than 1% from the same quarter of last year, keeping high quality Since the contribution from financial transactions are always small, the 5 years annual cumulative growth rate of 7% is unparalleled in our domestic sector. All in all, the group's operating income coming from customer activity grew 5% in the year, at the upper end of our lowtomidsingledigit guidance for 2020. Group operating costs totaled €829,000,000 in the year. They are up 2.7% from the previous year. Total operating costs on a like for like basis is Including EUR 62,000,000 from Ebo and EUR 33,000,000 from Avancar, we have been down by 2% from last year.
Thanks to our income growth in the year, growing our operating expenses by 2.7% means keeping our investment programs and marketing activities in place without having a negative impact in our group's efficiency, as we will see here. Our recurring banking efficiency continued to improve. The group cost to income dropped 40 basis points from December last year to 48.5%. We aim to keep the long term banking cost to income below 45% as well as try to improve efficiency in all our Acquired businesses. We continue to do so in Portugal, now with efficiency at 60% and in Avancar at 57%.
Evo is still negative efficiency. Our Spanish business runs at 43 efficiency ratio. Now let's look at the carbon cost of risk. Total recurring cost of risk in the year finished at 32 basis points of Total credit exposure reduced by 2 basis points from the 9 month period and only 29 basis points in the last quarter, Very good trend and only 9 basis points over last year. The increase in cost of risk in our banking activity in Spain was again related only to the consumer finance loan book, Thus the small SMEs loan book, the commercial banking loan book and mortgages, personal loans as well as the large and mid corporate loan book did not have significant impact during the year despite the difficult economic conditions.
And regarding nonrecurring cost of risk The extraordinary front loaded provision booked in the year of €242,000,000 to adapt Bank of Spain macroeconomic scenario to our internal IRB models for credit risk. After the release of a macroeconomic scenario by most central bank, we do not expect any additional provision. This extraordinary provision, together with €229,000,000 booked in the year as recurrent cost of risk, brings the total cost of risk at 67 basis points, just below our guidance for the full year. As we see things today, 2021 cost of risk will show an increase of recurrent cost of risk that will be more than offset by the inexistence of extraordinary provisions related to macro adjustment scenario. And all this should bring total cost of risk at the end of the year down from 2020.
After this extraordinary one off provisioning, group's net income It stands at €317,000,000 down 42% from a year ago. However, we expect this trend to be reverted in this year Once extraordinary impact finished and the expected recovery takes place in the economy to provoke asset quality to somehow normalize in the future. All the above has impacted on group's return on equity that now stands at 7.03% After this strong provisioning, excluding the impact of the extraordinary provisionings, return on equity will reach 10.79%, still above our cost of capital and differential from peers. We still see group's return on equity as an outlier in our domestic market, and we expect return on equity to recover, fueled by the growth of our domestic recurring business And some normalization of provisioning also improved Portuguese operation and the future developments of integration of Evonavancar starting to bear its fruit. In this chart yes, In this chart, we see the evolution of our tangible book value per share over the last 5 years with a solid annual cumulative growth of 6%, probably second to nonperformance in our domestic banking sector.
I will now go over our Management of Credit Risk, Liquidity and Solvency. Nonperforming loans finished their downward trend in 2018. But despite this difficult year, we have been able to show a very stable number. Total NPLs went down by €7,000,000 from the last quarter, mainly because of the annual NPL sell in consumer finance. Year on year, total NPLs remained almost flat at €1,690,000,000 Total group NPLs in 2020 grew by only €4,000,000 of this growth, €17,000,000 came from SMEs, €15,000,000 from mid corporates.
Portugal NPS came down €7,000,000 offsetting Avancar and Ireland with €5,000,000 up and Evoem spent only €2,000,000 up in the year. Finally, consumer finance NPL grew about €44,000,000 up to the €95,000,000 NPL sell in the last quarter. All of the rest business segments, large corporates, mortgage, affluent banking, came with a €22,000,000 reduction in the period. The group NPL ratio came down to 2.37%, lowest point since 2,008, a 19 basis point or 7% lower from a year ago. The decrease is fine, 5.5% from last In Spain, a 2.42 percent NPL ratio, 14 basis points below December 2019 and almost half of the sector averaged at 4.57 as of October 20.
In Portugal, the NPL ratio to 2.14 percent or only €150,000,000 of total NPLs. As shown in the chart on the right, At year end 2020, the group's NPL ratio went down to 2.2% for households, including consumer finance at 6.4% and decreases to 2.7% for corporates and SMEs, including small SMEs at 7.4%. Here we bring again a breakdown of the bank's total credit portfolios of December 2020 and the current NPLs and NPLs ratio by business segment. We compare this with January 2018 when IFRS 9 start to be implemented at right after the transparency stress test of the EDA. 42% of the loan book is in residential mortgages and personal loans to the bank's individual customers.
With NPLs ratio of 2.2 It was 2.71 percent back in 2018. This distribution shows our strength in quality of the loan book With the small changes over the years, overweight in affluent mortgage lending and in large corporate lending continues as in 2018 when Banquinter showed the lowest Capital depletion in Spain in the EBA stress test, just 114 basis points versus an average of 3.95 basis points from the EBA From the EBA 48 participant banks. Total provisioning for nonperforming assets increased consequently after the Extra provision to €1,000,000,000 a €206,000,000 increase from last year. This had a relevant impact on our provisions coverage, which now extends at 61% over last year or 25% higher. Coverage for foreclosed assets also improved to 49%, a 9% increase and above the average discount of our sold assets.
The group's foreclosed asset portfolio is 22% smaller than a year ago. It decreased by €64,000,000 from the previous year. This small portfolio now amounts to €227,000,000 coming from 531,000,000 5 years ago. Total sales in the year amount to €98,000,000 or 34% of the stock at the beginning of the year. We Let's move into capital.
Our CET1 ratio finished the year reaching 12.29 percent, an increase of 32 basis points from last quarter and 67 basis points from a year ago Due to lower dividend payout, together with the lower capital consumption of the loan growth included in the government guarantee scheme and regulatory flexibility in this quarter related to software deduction. Since December 2019, our return earnings Bring an increase of 80 basis points, underpinned by the cancellation of the first two quarters' dividend, but not the third one to adapt to the maximum payout This exceptional increase helps to offset some of the negative impacts in the period, such as the increase in insurance equity. The capital consumption of risk weighted assets growth for the year has been 25 basis points due to the help of the state guarantee on lending growth. Also, the reduction of the IRB shortfall brings 33 basis points positive in this year, more than compensate the extra provisioning. Total capital ratio improved to 15%, thanks also to the July 'eighty one issuance now being accounted.
It stands very comfortable above minimum regulatory requirements. Leverage ratio also improved to 5.2%. Finally, as of December 20, we had a ratio of 21.6% of our risk weighted assets in MREL requirement fully completed. After closing a difficult year and despite the more complex environment, we reached record levels above 12% in CET1 ratio. Relevant increases in our customer deposits has bring our funding gap negative for the first time probably in our 55 year history.
This happens mainly in Spain From over €8,000,000,000 5 years ago €8,000,000,000 5 years ago to positive €1,300,000,000 gap that more than offset the gap coming from Portugal, having higher lending than deposits. Our wholesale funding maturities continued well balanced with only €200,000,000 due to this year, €1,000,000,000 in 2022,000,000 for 2023. Thus, we continue comfortably positioned for the coming years with an increase €20,700,000,000 in As of the Taltros and after the last auctions in September, total stake stands now just below €13,000,000,000 And we account the interest earned At this 3 year average, a 30 basis points during 4Q 'twenty. Regarding AT1, Just a reminder that we issued EUR 350,000,000 perpetual bond issue with a 6 year call and a quarterly coupon of 6.25 percent. And we pretend to call the €200,000,000 previous one on May 2021.
Now let's review the performance of our main business lines and their contribution to the group's P and L. Here you can see the improvement in the income diversification over the last 5 years and excluding the contribution from Linea Directa, very balanced between corporates and commercial banking with 16 coming from consumer finance despite the loan reduction, 7% represent Portugal and 3% coming from Evobanca. We you could see that on the right side, we have the business line of the investment banking That supports activity both in Retail Banking and Corporate Banking, but we want to have a different Space for them just to clarify that it's a new business line providing new strong diversification. The corporate and SME loan book in Spain and Portugal grew by 11% last year or over €3,000,000,000 It increased by 11.5% in Spain, while the sector grew at 8.1% year on year since last November. Thus, we have increased our market share to 5.2% from 5 a year ago.
All this growth started during the Q2 boosted by the government guarantee Ecolines, and the entire sector has made Wide use of them. After the summer, there has been a slowdown in corporate loan demand, only improved by December pickup. As a recap, we have signed over €6,600,000,000 of government guaranteed coins with our customers, providing more than €8.5 €1,000,000,000 in financing to our customer, 50% in loans and the rest in other types of financing. Customers were mainly large SMEs, Small SMEs and large corporates. We will review our production in a separate slide.
The most important sources of income for the corporate banking Going forward, still international trade still our international trade and supply chain that continues to show loan book growth, Transactional business turnover with corporate customers that went slightly down from the period due to lower activity And investment banking that generated €76,000,000 in operating income, a 6% increase from last year. Out of them, €17,000,000 are fee income with a growth of 24 over the past year. Let's look now at some indications of the credit quality of our corporate loan book in Spain and Portugal. The corporate loan book granted To non financial enterprises amount to €28,400,000,000 at the end of December 2020. From this total lending, 10.6 €1,000,000,000 granted to large corporates, those with yearly turnover over €50,000,000 and more than 2 50 employees €7,000,000,000 loans granted to medium sized enterprises, those with a turnover of €5,000,000 to €50,000,000 We call them SMEs Type A, With 2 larger loan books represent over 62% of the total corporate book.
Only 18% Our €5,200,000,000 of the bank's total corporate loan book are loans to small enterprises with a turnover of €1,000,000 to €5,000,000 or what we call SMEs Type B. And the rest is split between €2,500,000,000 of property and housing related financing, €1,900,000,000 in international trade finance and €1,000,000,000 lended to public sector corporates and others. Out of the SMEs loan book with European definition, below €50,000,000 turnover of €12,200,000,000 we can see relevant difference in NPL behavior between Small and large SMEs at December 2020, NPL ratios were 7.4% and 3.5%, respectively. These two segments were the main beneficiaries of the Ecoline, accounting 35% 29% of the respective portfolios of December with a state guarantee for Close to 75%. In addition, these two segments have today 42% real guarantee.
We have always enjoyed a high Quality loan book relative to peers. And today, we feel comfortable with the carbon asset mix. It has shown no significant changes over the last 10 years, Preserving the strong asset quality standard for each segment are corporates and always obtaining yields according to our risk rewards. Moving on. We show Banquinta spent participation in the government guarantee ECO lines for corporates and SMEs.
Total ECO loans were over €6,600,000,000 All these loans have been granted mainly in medium and small corporates and the rest to large The average maturity are over 3 years, and the cost of the guarantee is 40 basis points approx and the average yield at EUR 1.89. A total of EUR 8,600,000,000 of eco loans have been signed by Bancinter, market share of 7.3% on the facility, well above our natural market share. And on moratoriums for mortgages and consumer finance to individuals, These amounts are reduced and represent a very small part of our loan portfolio, €546,000,000 and less than €10,000,000 respectively, and represent only less than 2% of the mortgage book and less than 0.1% of the portfolio book in consumer. Moving on in Private and Personal Banking. Customer assets increased from last year By the difficult behavior and the small negative market effect, now in both business, assets under management shows increases of €4,800,000,000 In a net new patrimony, split €2,600,000,000 in private banking and €2,200,000,000 in personal banking.
Moving on. Activity in our commercial banking during the year has been strong, particularly in our 2 main products. Salary account balances continue to grow. They are up 22% from a year ago, totaling over 12.7%. Since September, we have lowered the requirement to access the accounts benefit to be able to increase the number of customers that can take full advantage of it in a very well received marketing campaign.
The new mortgage origination at €2,900,000,000 finally ended below that of last year, but only by 3%, Recovering from the Q2 when the lockdown had an important impact in origination. Bancinter still holds larger market share in the front that in the back book of the new mortgages, 62% were fixed rate and its average loan to value ratio is 60%. Our market share in new mortgages is now over 6% in the 12 months ending in October. As a result, the total mortgage back book maintained growth And reached €28,600,000,000 in Spain growing by 1.7%, while the rest of market continues to shrink by 1.5% as of November 2020. The loan to value of the total backbulk stands at 55%.
Now let's look at our stand alone business in Portugal. Loan book grew by 7% to €6,600,000,000 and retail funds at €4,800,000,000 up 6% from a year ago. Growth in loan book was in both corporates, up 12% as well as in retail lending At 4% year on year, off balance sheet of €3,600,000,000 shows a 2% increase from last year. As of the income statement, operating income The business grew by 13%. Cost shows again 3% reduction in line with cost control plans.
All of the above brings pre provisioning profit up by a very strong 50%. However, up to the €9,000,000 normalized loan losses a very small impact of €6,500,000 from extraordinary recoveries, here I remind you that the last year we have €29,000,000 positive cost of risk Therefore, Portugal profit before taxes post €45,000,000 31% below that of last year. Today, 4 years since the acquisition of Portugal, our operations there show an efficiency ratio close to 60% and has become the 5th Region in operating income contribution to the group with close to 8% contribution. Bancinter Consumer Finance includes our consumer finance business in Spain, Portugal and Ireland under avant garde that, by the way, has been renamed to Avant Money. At the end of the year 2020, total loan book was EUR 2,900,000,000 flat from a year ago.
Let's see now where growth has come from last year. Total loan book includes almost EUR 500,000,000 from Avant Card, Growing by €28,000,000 in the year, we have €250,000,000 from Portugal, growing €39,000,000 in the year. And we have EUR 2,100,000,000 in Spain, where the loan book only contracted by EUR 68,000,000 in the year and with a very different behavior between personal loans Growing by €50,000,000 and credit card down €120,000,000 That is €114,000,000 of them in revolving cards. New credit origination, mainly in personal loans, went down on purpose by 25%. As mentioned earlier, €114,000,000 reduction in revolving credit cards bring the total outstanding under €556,000,000 or 17% less than a year ago.
Total number of customers grew by 3% to 1,740,000. In Spain credit card business represents 42% of the €2,100,000,000 of total consumer finance outstanding Our revolving credit cards, only 26% of total. The rest are payable at the end of the month, even though they are mainly granted to existing Bankinter With a much better risk profile than pure consumer finance customers. Although the new Stricter accounting standard for NPLs implemented in 2020 and the extraordinary provision for macro adjustments of IRB model increased cost of risk in the year. In the Q4, consumer finance have executed their annual sale of NPL's portfolio for an amount of €95,000,000 with Very low impact in the P and L account.
This has bring NPS ratio as of December to 6.1% from 8.2% in the previous quarter. Provision coverage again reached over 100%. Cost of risk climbed to 5.1%, although this brought the risk adjusted return to business to 5.7%. Also to be mentioned, at the end of September, they have And try to maintain the very good asset quality going forward. Moving on, getting close to the end.
During the Full 1st full year of Evobanko, they performed according to its business plan despite the impact of the slowdown in credit card activity, but the implementation of the new mortgage Origination has helped to recover commercial activity. New mortgage granted from December 2019 were €395,000,000 Personal loan and credit cards amounted to €60,000,000 down from the beginning of the year. As for management ratio, customer margin stood at 1.2 3% NPL at 1.35 percent with €16,700,000 in NPL. I think we can say that Evo's Evobanko's customer acquisition and mortgage lending robust growth are good prospects for the future evolution towards a turnaround in its P and L account over the next 2 years, in line with existing business plans. And finally, let's look at Linea Directa's contribution in the year, most probably the last year within the group.
It continue to perform strongly despite strong pressures on premiums in the new environment. Total insured risk Increased by 1.7% in the year, increasing linear directed market share in Spain. And issued premiums grew by only 0 0.8%, which, apart from a small increase versus the previous quarter, suggests continued price competition and weak demand, particularly in motor insurance. Nonetheless, the net direct cost growth in motor premiums continued to outperform the industry's average With a small reduction on 0.9%, while the sector reduces almost by 2%. In home insurance, it grew by 8%, while the Sector grew by 2.7%, which is over 3x market growth.
And in health insurance, Biba total policies close to Eighty closed the year with 89,000 policies, a 29% increase from a year ago, and this is in line with its business plan. LTA's combined ratio improved to an outstanding 83.4%. This is 4.50 basis points less from last year. So despite lagging premium growth, it continued to improve in the quarter during the reduction of 30 basis points in the claim cost After the traffic slowdown during and after the lockdown, the cost ratio jumped somehow to 21.8 Because of the continued acquisition and marketing cost in the quarter. LDA's combined ratio way below 85% is at its Lows in many years, and IDA Direct expects to maintain this level below 85% this year.
Having one of the lowest Combined ratio in the industry represents a strong competitive advantage that will allow Linea Directa to outgrow its competitors in the coming years despite the new more difficult market If we look now at its income statement, net profit went up by 26% from last year, improving the results obtained during the This is due to minus 7% claim cost reduction combined with a 3% increase in net earned premiums. These revenue trends from operations resulted in a technical insurance result of EUR 146,000,000 41% up. Return on equity, 35 percent solvency, 276%, well above industry standards. And let me finish with a recap. We have a strong growth in recurrent income from our customer activity despite the impact of the difficult Economic scenario with increased pre provisioning profit.
In accordance with this difficult environment, we have done a strong effort with current Cost remained almost flat to be able to support pre provisioning profit going forward. We've made also a strong effort in increasing the coverage for potential risk, And we have improved solvency and coverage level. These are the main figures. I will not go through them again. But after closing a very difficult 2020 and in view of a complex scenario in a slow recovery this 2021, we should be able to achieve that we consider our guidance for this year.
So we expect for 2021 Growth, loan growth in all geographies. Portugal, either in commercial and corporate banking, we expect growth. Ireland, Either in consumer finance and the new mortgage business, we expect proper growth. Evobanko, in mortgage, we expect growth in line with the 4th quarter as well. Spain, we expect again a good momentum of growth in mortgages and personal loans.
However, in Spain, we expect in 2021 that corporate loans We'll be impacted by less activity in corporate demand after eco financing. So this is the only, let's say, uncertain part of the expectations in loan growth. Apart from that, we expect a good growth for next year. Net interest income growth, We expect a positive low single digit despite the negative interest rate in Euribor 12 months that will impact mostly in the 1st two quarters. In an increased activity scenario and stable markets, fee income growth we expect in the range of the mid single digit positive And group's operating income in mid single digit, similar to 2020.
We expect group costs to remain flattish. We'll make plenty of efforts to make this happen. And pre provisioning profit should be remained resilient and maintain the growth of 2020, At least, again, positive jaws are expected for 2021. And the total cost of risk will double digit trend down, thanks to the absence of additional provisions for macroeconomic scenario to a level of 60 basis points, probably more or less at the year end. This is our best guidance that we can provide you right now.
And we have some time, more than the previous results presentation, to take your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Jacobo, for that detailed explanation, and thank you for advancing the guidance for 2021. Let's start probably with the top two topics we have seen in our experience Today, Linea Directa, as you would expect, and Capital. On Linea Directa, we had many questions Regarding any updates, any feedback on the spin off of Linea Directa.
Yes. Thank you. Regarding Linea Directa, I think the news are that we finally submitted The application for the Linea Directa spin off to the regulators. So I think this is a positive view. I It is difficult to say exactly the proper timing of the final execution of the spin off, but I think this is the first good step to move forward the transaction.
Of course, We have a very close relationship and communication with regulators, And we will try to execute the transaction as soon as possible, but of course, we need to respect the processes and the timings. And it's difficult for us to provide you a good timing for these transactions, ParaBliss. And as I mentioned, I think the good news is that we finally submitted The application for this spin off.
Okay. How much capital do we expect to how much we expect to impact in capital the spin off of Linea Directa?
Yes. I think this is very similar to what we shared 1 year ago, it will be somewhere between 5 to 10 basis points, depend exactly on the final timing of the transaction. Positive, of course, sorry, 5 to 10 basis points positive.
Okay. And since we are on the linear director topic, what are your views for 'twenty one on the insurance business?
I think that we have seen in 2020 is probably extraordinary reduced cost of claims. And for 2021, I think we expect higher levels of claims cost. However, I think 2021 will be better than a normalized year like 2019. So we expect a lot of competition. We expect price competition.
We expect a good combined ratio for Line Direct as well in 2021. But as I mentioned, results in 2021 is [SPEAKER CARLOS GOMES DA SILVA:] To have to be similar to 2020 because I have been exceptional of the reduced level of claim cost, But it will be definitely better than in 2019.
Okay. Moving into capital. We had some questions regarding the dividend that we are planning to pay for 20 that we are planning to pay for 2020? [SPEAKER IGNACIO CUENCA ARAMBARRI:]
Yes. For 2020, The limitation of the 15% payout is the one that we will apply. Therefore, the expectations from dividends Exactly, it is 15% of the results once deducted the cost of the 81 coupons that are around €19,000,000
Okay. As a reminder, there we have paid dividends during 2020, but that was obviously against the net income of 2019, okay? What are your plans for 2021 in terms of dividends also?
So in 2021, of course, we need to wait what the ECB recommendations will be. But we want to come back to our 50% payout dividend policy as soon as possible. And we will respect whatever recommendation the ECB makes on financial institutions here in Spain.
Okay. 2 more on capital. What are your plans to allocate capital given the that we are above 12% CET1 currently?
Yes. In a normalized situation, our guidance is 11.5%. So as you know, we have much higher levels today just To go through these moments, this what you call excess capital, Of course, we will dedicate it to organic growth. As I did mention in my guidance, we have good expectations in growth in all geographies: Spain, Portugal and Ireland. And in segments, as I mentioned, in mortgages in Ireland, mortgages in Portugal, mortgages in Spain, We have a recovery of the consumer finance business as well.
So there is plenty of room to allocate that capital in the future.
Okay. Last one on capital. Any regulatory impact left?
No, that we are aware. The only impact The recent the more recent impact was the software deductions that we have recognized in the Q4, which is around 18 positive Basis points in capital.
Okay. Moving on to loan growth now. You have been commenting our willingness to grow on different business. Can you be any more specific? Or where do you expect to see more growth in 2021 or more demand coming from?
Yes. As I mentioned, we expect to follow some momentum of the activity that we have in the 4th quarter, we have a great momentum in Evobanca, for example, in the mortgage world. We have a good momentum Also in mortgages in the Spanish market in the Q4, we are launching the mortgage business in Ireland, And I'm sure it's going to be a good success. So those business will drive growth In 2021, of course, consumer finance business will start the recovery Correlated with growth in consumption and more certain world that we all expect in 2021.
Okay. Do we expect to see any more loan growth coming from eco loans?
I think the demand is going to be some sort of stable, but it will depend on the recovery of the Spanish economy. Of course, I did not mention the increase in the EU program, next generation You program that we expect some funds in Spain probably in the second half of twenty twenty one. This could also boost Some of our corporate loan book portfolio.
Okay. Moving on to the P and L now. Net interest income. How much TLTRO can you just repeat how much TLTRO we currently are outstanding? And what are your plans regarding the balance of TLTRO?
So up to today, we have almost EUR 13,000,000,000 If Telcos as you know, there's a potential additional 5% than we can request. And of course, we will consider it seriously, and this amount is around EUR 1,200,000,000 or EUR 1,300,000,000 of additional That we are strongly considering to go for them.
Okay. Are we expecting to Any changes on the rate accrual in 2021?
In the Teltros accrual? Yes. Yes. At the last quarter, Q4 of 2020, the accrual figure was around 70 basis points. And we expect that for 2021, the accrual rate We'll be closer to 85%, 87% sorry, 85%, 87 basis points in the accrual of the belt rules.
Okay. Also on the NII, what sort of impacts are you expecting from the ALCO portfolio in 2021 We expect
a very low reduction of the contribution, but it shouldn't be reasonable I mean, it's Very short one. One single digit reduction in the contribution of the ALCO portfolio to NII.
Okay. And final on the NII. Any color on the 4th
repricing of the mortgage book with the driver, and we are compensating it with mortgages With a large proportion of fixed rate mortgages, we have good volumes in nickel lines for In corporates, we have improving pricing also in the loan book. And of course, we are reducing the cost of liabilities once again from clients. And the telcos in this quarter have contributed with a marginal €2,000,000 in this quarter. So I think the last quarter NII has behaved quite well in terms of volumes and in terms of client margin resilience. Thank you.
Fee income now.
Again, can you give us some color on the performance of the quarter? And what are your views for 2021.
I think the quarter has been outstanding. I think we got an excellent behavior of the assets under management business, where we have more than recovered the levels of the pre COVID movement. And we have end up with almost More than EUR 2,000,000,000 of additional assets under management, keeping a good average fee. Also, the brokerage business has been very good again in this last quarter. We have been good activity in the investment banking world And international business and also in the insurance business.
So I think it's been very positive from a commercial activity. All levels of activity have been growing during the quarter since October up to December, which has been a great, great month.
Okay. Thank you. Expenses now. We have seen expenses going up in the quarter. So we had some questions, whether this is related to IT investments and also what shall we expect in future quarters, what shall we expect run rate for next few quarters?
Okay. So in terms of costs, personnel costs have been similar to where they were last year. So there is no major issues. Of course, there is some stationality due to incentive remuneration, but there is no major aspect To mention. In terms of the last quarter, we still have increasing levels of amortization, and this is due to IT investments, Of course.
And we have also probably a little bit more of expenses due to our marketing campaigns [SPEAKER ANASTASIA ALBERTO PEREIRA DE OLIVEIRA:] That we have put in place in the last quarter in Spain, in EVO and in Portugal. So there is No one offs. Just more concentration in the 4th Q, for example, in terms of marketing. And of course, the IT investments are still Good path.
Moving now on to asset quality. Cost of risk. How do you see IFRS 9 stages performing in 2021? Where do you expect to see growth, if any at all? Of
course, we expect NPLs to finish 2021 Above EUR 2,000,000,000. We expect probably an NPL ratio to reach 3% probably at the end of 2021. But for the time being, I must say that and this is something reflected in the Stage 2 levels, which are very stable. We are reaching levels of delinquency, which are really low. And that means that there is no reason why we should increase Stage 2 volumes.
For 2021, we do expect an increase of, as I mentioned, Stage 2 and NPLs. But for the time being, we still have very low levels of delinquencies.
That's right. We have a question specific on whether we have seen any signs of asset quality deterioration in consumer or SMEs?
We I've not seen anything different what we've seen in the past quarters. So we kept the similar for the time being. We have the similar trends.
Okay. And can you update us on the moratoria levels for both Spain and Portugal?
Yes. In terms of moratoriums in Spain, we have 636,000,000 yes, 636,000,000. As we mentioned, 550,000,000 just rounding figures are in mortgages. The rest are I mean, consumer finance is Almost negligible. And there's other very small lines of tourist transportation, which accounts with a very low figure.
So the overall In Moratoria, in Spain, it's below 1%, the total portfolio and in mortgages, it's below 2%. In Portugal, we have EUR 1,000,000,000 of amount in Moratoria, which accounts for more or less 15% of the portfolio. And in mortgages, We have €600,000,000 which accounts for 14% of the portfolio.
Moving now on to other provisions. We are getting some questions regarding how much of the provisions that we booked in the quarter have to do with litigation. And also, obviously, what do you expect to see in 2021?
Yes. Yes. In the quarter, it's around EUR 50,000,000 are in related to litigations. There is a lot of stationality at the end of the year. Normally, there is some stationality.
Just as a reminder, this is to do with FX mortgages, right?
I mean the FX mortgages is there. Although at the end of the year, It's been still, as we mentioned, slowing down. Just as we mentioned, the peak was in 2019. 2020 has been a reduction. There has been a reduction in FX mortgages.
And next year, we will also expect A downward trend similar to what we've seen this year. Okay.
We had some questions Your views on consolidation in Spain?
If you're asking me about consolidation of Banquinter, There's nothing to say there because we do not expect any consolidation where Bancinter can be involved. In the context of other potential consolidations, the only thing that we can say is that we believe that for us, it's a good opportunity To grow because there is an expectation of reduction of number of branches and there is an expectation of number of relationship managers. And for us, which we are a bank with a good quality of services, we have more capability to attract people to our business model. So we are positive and optimistic about client growth for 2021. And of course, of these volumes that I've just mentioned are supported by the opportunity that consolidation in Spain can bring us.
Okay. And also on an international basis, what are your expectations on our international business model going forward.
I think Portugal is behaving excellent. We have a 2% market share, so there is Plenty of room to grow with a very good credit quality. And as we saw in the presentation, with 50% of Pre provisioning profit growth, as you can imagine, we are very optimistic and happy with Portugal operations. In terms of Ireland, the new business line of mortgages, I'm sure we will bring plenty of new business, plenty of New sources of revenues. And again, we are very happy with what is happening in Ireland, of course, also with the consumer finance business, which is recovering probably And I mentioned to Luxembourg, our Luxembourg business is also growing a lot with assets under management also growing at a good level.
So our international franchise is Working very well.
Thank you, Jacobo. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. That was all from us. Obviously, the Investor Relations teams will be happy to take any further questions. Goodbye.
Thank you very much. Have a nice day, And hope to see you next time. Bye bye.