Thank you, everyone, for joining our webcast. First, I will start with the usual disclaimer that the results which we'll present to you today are the preliminary consolidated ones of BRD Group, as of end of March 2024, and they have been approved by our board of directors, on the 2nd of May. Of course, they are in accordance with all applicable rules and, notably, IFRS. So I will move now to the first slide of our presentation, which is the executive summary to shortly describe our performance in Q1 2024. As you maybe remember from the previous quarters, we continue with a very good growth of our commercial activity, both in retail and in corporate business. If you look at the right side of our slide, you'll see that our loan portfolio grew by 12.3% year-on-year, compared to last year, March.
The corporate loans in this period grew even by 20.4%. The individual loan production recorded again a very good level at RON 2.3 billion in Q1 2024, and it is confirming the capacity of our commercial teams to deliver very good results. Before I move to the deposits and to other details of our performance in Q1 2024, I would like to share with you that this excellent lending activity brought us 50 basis points year-on-year growth of our lending market share in total to 10.1%. Related to the individuals, it is 40 basis points year-on-year, while the corporates grew by 70 basis points year-on-year. You see that we have managed for another consecutive quarter to deliver growth of our market share, which has been also our target throughout the previous period.
While growing our business, we also wanted to make sure that we have enough resources to achieve this growth. That's why we managed to perform end of Q1 an important transaction for synthetic securitization of our corporate portfolio in a total amount of EUR 700 million. This is the reference portfolio with a commitment to deploy, to deploy around EUR 300 million of the re-released capital for ESG-related projects. In fact, through this transaction, we are managing to, to create enough space for commercial growth and also this growth to be mostly channeled through sustainable transactions. Now, I will move to the deposit growth, which was also very healthy by 13.3% year-over-year as of end of Q1.
If you look at the lending and the lending growth overall and the deposit growth, you'll see that, thanks to that, we are also having a very solid loan-to-deposit ratio, which allows us to continue growing also from the liquidity perspective. A highlight related to our digital developments, our channel YOU BRD, the mobile app for private individuals, reached 1.5 million users by the end of Q1. We can say that, in the meantime, in one quarter, we managed 7.2 million transactions through this channel, which is a 24% growth year-on-year and displays the engagement of our clients with our tools, which we give to their disposal. The gross operating income grew by 6.5% year-on-year. After that, my colleagues will detail especially on the drivers of this change.
I will not take the chance of our CFO, who will explain what has influenced this growth. I would like to mention also the NPL ratio, which remains very good, 2.1% end of March. We know that this 2.1% is better than the 2.4% average on the market. Our coverage ratio is 76.4% at the end of March, again very solid, very high, and above the benchmark. This time we had a net cost of risk of RON 54 million in Q1 versus RON 9 million last year at the same time. Our CRO will detail the normalization of the cost of risk for our bank in his contribution in detail. All this resulted in net profit of RON 3,326 million, slightly lower than what we had in Q1 2023.
But please also have in mind that this is the first quarter in which we are also having our tax over the turnover of 2%. So our financials in 2024 Q1 are also impacted by the environment, especially the fiscal one, which imposed the 2% tax on revenues. And now, I will pass to my colleague, Claudiu Cercel, to talk about the macro.
Thank you, Maria, and good afternoon, everyone. A short incursion into the macro context and some banking highlights. First, on the macro, remember that we ended last year in a losing momentum as far as economic growth is concerned. Still, the country benefited, was among the fastest economies in EU in terms of GDP growth. And even though we started this year in January and February also in a lackluster environment, there are some encouraging signs in March and April that could point to a resumption in growth. It's a bit better manufacturing in March and in April. It's a bit better consumption, which is driven also by the lending.
Also being an election year, it is expected that the economy will outperform in 2024 compared to 2023 with estimations quite widely between 2.75 as per the IMF readings, up to 3.4 as per the European Commission reading. Our own forecast, it's 3.4%. The other important KPI of the macro environment is the inflation. It is easing, but still in Romania, it remains quite high compared to the eurozone and even other countries in the region. It's still above 6.6%, even though in the Czech Republic, in Poland, now it's around 2%, Hungary 3%. And the central bank estimates that it will go down gradually till year-end, but it will still stay in 2024 above the targets they have in their inflation targeting mechanism above 4.5%.
It is expected for the inflation to return within the boundaries no earlier than end of 2025. In this environment, the central bank is rather in a wait-and-see attitude as far as interest rate cuts are concerned. We may still see a first cut in May, but now there are more and more analysts rather considering the central bank will continue waiting till later in the year before operating the first cut. And that's in spite of the liquidity, which is very abundant, continues to be very abundant in the system. Even though the liquidity is abundant, the rates somehow are now floored at the deposit facility rate of the central bank, which is 6%. The government securities yield curve, it's relatively flatish. It was a bit of volatility lately, being influenced by the evolutions, especially in the U.S.
Now it's a bit subsiding, but it will probably continue to be floored at 6% for as long as the central bank stays unchanged. I will wrap up with the main KPIs on the banking sector. The capital equity ratio continues to be comfortable at above 22%. Loan-to-deposits ratios close to 68% and very comfortable ratios on both LCR and NSFR. The asset quality continues to remain robust. NPL ratio 2.4%, just marginally up compared to the end of 2023, whereas the coverage ratio continues to be among the highest in the European Union. We are now back to a gradually decreasing share of indexed loans, as the gap between the RON and euro interest rates narrows. That will be all from me, and I will now pass to my colleague Mădălina to deep dive in the commercial field.
Thank you, Claudiu. Hello, everybody. First quarter, as Maria mentioned, it was actually a very good start of the year, continuing the commercial growth on all segments, while actually managing efficiency and cost. Main key success factor was to continue the digital adoption, increasing almost 30% year-on-year, number of users into the internet banking application and growing across all transactions double digits, reaching 7.2 billion number of transactions in YOU, above 80% in savings accounts opened directly in the app, above 95% of the transactions performed via digital channels in corporate customers as well as in private individuals. One of the most important achievement of the first quarter is as well the customer satisfaction that is managed via call center.
We improved significantly the service level, reaching 91% of the calls answered in 30 seconds, eight seconds average time for a call versus 32 seconds the previous quarter of last year. Significant improvement in terms of FX transaction via eTools, letter of credit and letter of guarantee processed through the trade finance client interface. Another important achievement is basically part of the deployment into the digital application, enhancing the visualization, buying or selling into the investment funds directly in YOU BRD, and multiple other features that enable customers to interact with the digital channels of BRD. While improving the usage of e-channels, we reduced the traditional channels of the bank, decreasing almost 20% the network year-on-year, reaching 391 branches end of March, and expanding cash services to more than half of the branches, having available 24/7 banking points.
In terms of lending activity, 12% above 12% year-on-year growth in terms of outstanding, with a remarkable growth on corporate lending on both SME above almost 27% year-on-year in terms of loans outstanding, as well as a consistent growth in leasing above 20% year-on-year. In terms of sustainable financing, we almost reached the RON 1 billion target with RON 970 million accumulated over the last two years, as well as Maria mentioned, and it will be detailed in the capital position, the landmark SRT transaction made with IFC that will as well be associated with a new deployment, a new commitment for deployment of EUR 300 million in ESG financing.
In terms of retail, the new production, it's a record year with a record quarter with new loans granted to individuals grown almost 50% year-on-year, a very good quarter for consumer loans, 51% growth year-on-year, as well as the new housing loan, both growth actually in terms of value and number above 30%. Core retail outstanding growing year-on-year 8.2%, underpinned by both individuals and small business loans. In terms of deposit base, we continue to diversify our portfolio and maintain the stability in an ample funding source, 12-13.3% year-on-year overall, 12% at March 2024 end, building a strong collection in terms of retail. Corporate deposits grew as well above 15%, driven by both SME clients as well as large corporates.
As I mentioned, a part of the own balance sheet growth of the deposit, we continue to grow on saving products in our asset management, we're maintaining a very solid third place position in the market with above 20% market share, as well as maintaining an important position in the active participation in Fidelis program, having a 30% market share in for individuals in the first quarter. BRD Insurance Life, an important activity in both increasing the liability base as well as preserving the risk on bundled bank assurance products with the lending, having a significant contribution for the bank income as well as repositioning, increasing one position of BRD Insurance Life, reaching the top four life insurance companies in Romania. I would pass the floor for the liquidity and the income to Etienne.
Thank you, Mădălina. Good afternoon to everyone. Indeed, this remarkable growth of deposits +13.3% year-on-year enables to confirm the robustness of the liquidity, very, very ample and very granular and stable as mostly, predominantly composed by the retail deposits. Our net loan-to-deposit ratio stands at 69% at the end of March, which is stable compared to end of March last year. And our liquidity buffer remains extremely comfortable with representing 33% of the balance sheet, which means approximately RON 28 billion, out of which approximately RON 20 billion of government bonds, portfolios of very high quality. Now, if we move to the next page, on page 13, to comment on the profit and loss statement, we can start with the revenues. Again, very dynamic quarter, mostly driven by our excellent commercial performance during this quarter.
The net banking income for the first quarter of 2024 stands at RON 985 million in growth by RON 50 million or +5.3% compared to Q1 2023. The first driver for growth of NBI is the net interest income growing by RON 45 million or almost 7%, which is driven itself by the volume effect. This is the direct translation of our excellent commercial performance by growing the loan book by +12% that enables to grow the net interest income. However, we start to feel also the fact that we have a slightly negative interest rate effect. We saw that the ROBOR three-month average decreased in the first quarter 2024 by almost 100 basis points compared to the first quarter 2023.
Another important comment we must make on the net interest income is that, as expected, we grew significantly the interest income. The interest income grew significantly and more than the growth of the loan book by volumes. But we have also to cope with the growth of interest expenses, because of the growth of the term deposit within the mix of total deposit. Anyway, the net interest income posted a very nice growth by +7% this quarter. The second driver, which we are also very satisfied with, is the growth of the net fees and commission, +8% or RON 14 million net growth this quarter. This is an achievement. Maybe you remember that, it was difficult to grow the fees and commission last year, but this year, we are on a very good momentum.
This growth is mostly driven by better fees on transfer and cards, approximately RON 7 million, still on capital market activities that remain very solid, plus RON 4 million. Moreover, we are also growing our collection of fees on all the off-balance sheet commitments that we continue to develop, plus RON 7 million. But we still have to manage to address the fact that we migrate more and more clients to the package offer, and therefore, we have a lower net revenue from the OTC operation, approximately minus RON 7 million. But all in all, we are growing the fees and commissions. The last component of the net banking income is the other incomes on which we have a net decrease of minus RON 10 million.
This is fully explained by a one-off file for which we have decided to have a prudent approach and to cover the risk at 100%. This is a limited impact, fully under control, and we stick with this prudent approach. If we take this element aside, the revenues coming from the activity, so trading activity, sales activity, and the banking book activities are overall stable. And if we look at the components, we have slightly less revenues on FX, but it is well compensated by more revenues on the fixed income activities. Now, if we move to slide 14 to comment on operating expenses, the main comment is that these costs remain under a very good control. We posted a total amount of operating expenses for the first quarter, so including all the IFRIC 21 elements, at RON 529 million, growing by RON 21 million, representing 4.2%.
Three main components. I will start with the, I can say the exceptional item, the seasonal item. We have the contribution to Deposit Guarantee Fund and Resolution Fund that decreased this year from RON 76 million in 2023 to RON 43 million in 2024. So we have a net improvement of RON 33 million. But this improvement is unfortunately almost fully compensated by the implementation of the new levy tax on the turnover, so 2% of the turnover. And I remind you that the turnover is not exactly the net banking income, but it is a larger base. For example, we have the interest income in the base but not the interest expenses. And this tax on turnover for the first quarter represented RON 13 million. The bad news is that this cost will remain approximately at the same level for the coming quarters, unfortunately.
The second element of the operating expenses is the staff expenses, growing by RON 20 million, representing approximately 9% growth. This is mostly driven by the price effect, the annual increase of wages, which was decided in an unfavorable environment and quite intense competition to attract and retain talents in the banking industry. But it was partially compensated by our effort to continue to reduce the number of headcounts at the bank level, especially coming from the optimization of the physical network. We decreased by approximately 100 FTEs, year-on-year. The last component of the operating expenses is composed of other expenses. They are definitely under very strict control. The only item in net growth is regarding IT investment, where we grew by RON 11 million. All the other items are either flat or decreasing.
Overall, this other expense component grew by only 1.4%, representing RON 3 million. The gross operating income grew by 6.5% year-on-year, representing a total amount of gross operating income of RON 455 million for the Q1, including all the IFRIC 21 and the new tax. But if we exclude the IFRIC 21 element and the new tax to focus on the core gross operating income, the amount was RON 529 million, which is in continuous growth compared to the previous quarter. So the core gross operating income is continuously growing. Moreover, the cost-to-income ratio improved by approximately 50 basis points year-on-year thanks to a positive jaws effect with more than 5% growth of the revenues while the growth of cost was contained at approximately 4%. This is for the GOI statements.
Now I give the floor to Philippe Thibaud to comment on the cost of risk.
Thank you, Etienne. Good afternoon. In recent years have been exceptional. You know that I love to quote this Dino Buzzati book on The Tartar Steppe. And as a CRO, we had quite a rich problem releasing provisions, although today, we see that the cost of risk has increased. It does not come as a surprise. And let me give you a few elements on this. The first point is that the cost of risk lands at 34 basis points this year on an annual basis. And this is exactly in the guidance that I reminded last quarter, the guidance of cost of risk, which is between 30 and 40 basis points. So it's a normalized cost of risk that we see. It is not unprecedented neither, as you can see on page 15, such strong Q1.
Actually, it is a bit a seasonal pattern to have a strong Q1. We had it previously in 2021. In 2020, we had such levels of cost of risk. The third point is that this level of RON 36 million just for BRD standalone is, and even if we take the total group BRD, we reach about 10% of the overlays that the bank has built over the years. These overlays are, by the way, still maintained. We have a healthy buffer of overlays. When you look at the NPL, you see that we have at 2.1% very low and very good NPL ratio, evidencing the quality of the resilience of the portfolio. We have also a very strong coverage ratio. At 76%, we are more than 10 points above the Romanian market.
I'm not even mention or yes, I do mention the EU coverage ratio, which is only at 43%. So we have a strong provision buffer. But we did, indeed, encounter, in Q1, more defaults. Past dues in total amount are still stable, but they are getting older. We get more defaults. We have a slightly more default rate, especially, in the retail, on the retail segment. On the non-retail portfolio, we have no major change. But on the retail, we see that the consumer finance has suffered a bit more, which was to be expected, which was expected.
And we had also this impact, which affected the smaller agriculture players, because the moratorium that was put in place didn't really help them in terms of rescheduling or having benefiting from the moratorium because of how heavy the process was and how, yeah, cumbersome it was to provide all the documents. So all in all, we had slightly more defaults. We are still in the guidance. The outlook for at least for Q2 is unchanged. And that's it for the cost of risk and the NPL. Come back to Etienne.
Yes. Thank you, Philippe. Last slide, to comment on slide 16, the capital position. So again, a very strong capital position at the end of March 2024. We are at 24.1% overall solvency ratio, which is in growth by more than 220 basis points year on year with four main components. Well, the first one is, of course, the fact that we distributed at the beginning of, that we distributed 50% of the profit coming from 2022, but we offset this element by the retained profit of 2023, basically 50% as well. The third element is the improvement on the long-term yields that enabled to improve the stock of negative OCI in the prudential own funds by approximately RON 600 million net impact in the own funds, representing approximately 120 basis points improvement.
And the fourth element is neutral net growth of RWA almost zero, explained by two components. The first one is, of course, we grew the portfolio of loans significantly, as you saw, approximately 12% overall growth of the loan book. But on the other end, we also signed this significant risk transfer transaction with IFC, International Finance Corporation. They are part of the World Bank Group, and they benefit from an excellent rating, enabling to decrease our RWA on the credit risk portfolio significantly. So the net impact of RWA at the end of March 2024, on a year-to-year basis is almost neutral. This enables to have a very, very comfortable capital position. And we will monitor closely the situation, especially on OCI, until the end of this year to see if we have any possibility to contemplate any decision regarding the capital.
I give back the floor to Maria Rousseva for the conclusion.
Thank you, Etienne. Since we have been very detailed in our explanation, I would just shortly summarize that we continue observing very good dynamic related to the commercial activity, which, of course, then results in improved performance, NBI-wise. Then, we have been able to grow our market share in all segments. In the same time, we managed to securitize part of our corporate loan portfolio so that we free up additional space for further commercial growth. The deposits are developing in a very satisfactory manner. So we are gaining market share there as well. The digital adoption is in line with our plans, and we are introducing new functionalities which improve the client journey.
The financial results, therefore, are very positive, especially the positive jaws effect, which leads to improvement of the cost-income ratio despite the fact that this quarter we have, for the first time, the tax impact, the impact on the turnover tax. Our profitability remains quite high. The return on equity is 15 basis, 15%. And it is within our ambitions. So everything is in line with what we have planned, and we can continue growing based on these solid results. Thank you.