Thank you everyone for being with us. As usually, I will start with a disclaimer that these are our financial results as of end of June at the group level. They have been yesterday examined by our board of directors. They are prepared according to IFRS and as I said, they are at group level but it is not the full financial statement and it is not audited. I will move now to the presentation itself. First half of 2026, we can say that we feel confirmed in the resilience of our model, and I don't mean only our business model, but I mean also our operational model, because you'll see after how much it is very volatile and very insecure in the uncertain environment. Our bank despite this environment, managed to perform in line with what we wanted. I'll start with the commercial results.
We grew our loan portfolio by 12% and despite the fact that we have tightened certain origination criteria, having in mind the macroeconomic environment, you see that the dynamic is quite healthy year-on-year. Regarding the individual's portfolio of 9% growth, here, if you remember previous time, I told you that we rely more on mortgage than consumer loans because of the macroeconomic environment and because it's our strategic direction anyway. The large corporate loan portfolio grew by 23% year-on-year. Again, as we mentioned on the previous calls, large corporates is a segment in which we feel still potential despite the environment, and it's confirmed in our performance commercially. You know that we follow our contribution to the sustainable economy, and we follow regular basis our innovative sustainable financing.
We have accumulated in the meantime EUR 2.6 billion and I think more than EUR 300 million have been contributed in the previous period in addition to what we have done before. The deposit grew by 4% year-on-year. The digital activation of our retail clients continue its upward trend. In the meantime, we have almost all active retail clients onboarded on our two YouBRDs, 1.96 million users presently, which represent 11% growth of this indicator. Of course, because more clients, we have also more transactions through these tools both in terms of number but in terms of volume as well. Mădălina will detail later. All these good commercial results have resulted in Gross Operating Income of EUR 1.11 billion , which represent 10% year-on-year. If we exclude the tax on that turnover, remember, we book it in our OpEx.
The NPL ratio, 2.7% in June, it's below the average of the market. The NPL coverage ratio is 65.6% at the end of June and is slightly above the coverage of the market. The net Cost of Risk for H1 is 52 basis points and it is in line with our guidance. Philippe will detail later. The net profit in H1 represent 11% year-on-year growth excluding the impact of the tax on turnover. The Return on Equity of 17% also excludes the tax on turnover so that we can demonstrate that our underlying business is developing in a healthy manner, in the right direction, becoming more efficient while commercially we are more active. So now, as usually, I will give the floor to Claudiu who's going to talk about the macro and the banking.
Thank you, Maria, and good afternoon everyone. Indeed, we continued operating in a challenging macroeconomic environment driven by this drag on the economy fostered by the fiscal consolidation. Some early signs of stabilizations started appearing in the second quarter due to especially the fixed gross capital formation and big projects in infrastructure. I would say that the best news somehow, because we speak about this fiscal consolidation, is the budget deficit for the first six months of the year at 2%, which is really an overachievement. We remember that two years ago we were approaching 10%. For 2027, there are good odds for the budget deficit to not only be on the target, but even to overachieve at slightly below 6%. The labor market is still weak. This tends to be a lagging indicator.
The inflation is still lagging due to the base effect of tax increases last year, but we will start seeing the first signs of inflation going down in July and we are now on a trajectory to be at 5.5% year-on-year inflation at year-end of 2026. In this environment of still inflationary pressures, the central bank did not operate any change in the monetary policy rate. They will probably not do any move till year-end. They will still wait for the fiscal consolidation to become entrenched and the inflationary pressures to fade away. Interest rates are relatively stable with ROBOR three months 5.8%, whereas the long-term yields stay in this range of between 6% and 7%. An important thing, rating agencies will start issuing their decisions, with Fitch being the first one. They will issue their rating decision on 31st of July, so tomorrow.
On the FX, relatively stable after the depreciation that we had some months ago with the central bank still in the market making sure that unwanted volatility impacts the currency. Proceeding further with the indicators on the banking level. They continue to be strong and comparing good with EU average on the third count that we usually measure and present on capital adequacy and liquidity loans and deposits, where even we can mention the loan growth improved in the second quarter, approaching the 10% year-on-year in May. With one mention on asset quality that indeed the NPL ratio increased year-on-year, and it's above the average as it used to be during all this time. But with this important, I would say, comforting factor that the NPL coverage at close to 64% is well above the EU average of 41%.
Now I will pass the floor to Mădălina for the deep dive in the commercial activity.
Thank you very much, Claudiu. Hello, everybody. Despite the challenging macroeconomic context in the first half of the year, we continue to deliver the growth ambition as well as the omni-channel strategy. I will start mentioning that we continue register double-digit growth in number of customers using our digital channels as a result of all the effort that has been put in the last quarters in launching new features and improving our digital end-to-end processes. This has been also received a public recognition. In the first half of this year, our landmark mobile banking application, YouBRD, has been awarded as Product of the Year, and this is actually also confirmed by the increases in number of users, 11%, as well as our customers enrolled and engagement into the app. We continue also in the second quarter, as well as in the first half of this year, launching new features.
Second quarter was actually having insurance business as main participants into the app. We launch insurance policies. We were the first bank launching electronic ID accepted into the onboarding, as well as travel insurance into the app and online assisted in the branches. All these actually are also confirmed by the double-digit increase, 20%, in number of transactions, volumes, as well as continuing to have vast majority above 95% of the payments into the digital ecosystems, deposit opening, and a significant percent of trade FX transactions. On top of the mobile applications, we continue servicing our customer remotely via contact center with a significant improvement in service level and improved of service levels year-on-year, nine seconds average time to respond, reduced significantly versus the first half of last year. And with actually a contribution of the recent messages, I would say, the digital interaction also via contact center.
While optimizing the physical footprint, so network currently accounts for 334 branches, a reduction of 23% year-on-year, and an increased footprint of 24/7 self-service capabilities. Moving further to the lending activity, as Maria mentioned, almost 12% increase year-on-year. The main drivers in the lending activity in retail mortgage loans, this creates a long-term relationship with the customers and give us the possibility to become the main bank for those customers, as well as large corporates that are actually increased year-on-year On almost 24% in volumes. Consumer lending slowed down in this macroeconomic context while all the other products related to SMEs, leasing as well, continue to deploy a diversified offer for our customers. In terms of saving and the wealth ecosystem, we actually continue the diversification and increase the most stable and granular funding resources from the retail customers.
We actually also continue our strategy of having a diversification into the customer wealth portfolio, continue to increase constantly and consolidate the asset management position in the market. A new, I would say, very good achievement is in the insurance life, which provides both investments as well as life insurance for our customers bundled with retail product. This company consolidate reaching the third position in the insurance market. I will pass the floor to Vladimir about the liquidity position.
Good afternoon from my side as well. Thank you, Mădălina. I will continue with the liquidity. In the second quarter, our liquidity position remained very solid, despite the contraction of the Loan-to-Deposit Ratio, which was mainly driven by this already described decrease in the corporate deposits. We are having still very comfortable high liquidity assets buffer, composed by the government bonds, reaching almost 30% of our portfolio on asset side. Our liquidity position in terms of regulatory matrix, is as well very comfortable staying at 170% overall the Liquidity Coverage Ratio. Moving forward to the revenues.
The revenues in the first semester, first half of 2026, went up by 1.8%, continuing to be supported by the development of NII and the flattish development of the fees, driven actually by the one of which we booked in the first quarter of 2025, and which is increasing the base of the year-over-year comparison. Broadly in the second quarter, we have reported quite strong dynamics of our core revenues, like improvement of both our NII and fees. The NII actually added, driven by the increase on the loan side and the optimization of our cost of funding. Despite that, because of the environment, we are still seeing the competitive pressures on the NII coming from the loan side, as well as the increased cost of funding, which we have seen compared to mainly last two quarters of the last year.
On the fees and commissions, we were able to accelerate the growth in the second quarter. It is worth to mention that, similar to the last year, we are again supported by the lowering of the costs on the cash transaction side, which are supported by one as well, a one of income, similar to the last year, despite smaller than the last year, and which are allowing us actually to keep this year-over-year dynamic flattish. On top of that, we are still continuing to see good momentum in our brokerage custody and asset under management activities, which are further supporting the growth of our fee income. If I continue with the costs. On the cost side, we are year-over-year declined by half a percent, despite the doubling of the Turnover Tax year-over-year. Without these regulatory charges, our OpEx costs would be declining by 3% year-over-year.
We are having, despite the very inflationary environment, very good results on both staff costs and other costs. On the staff costs, we are declining year-over-year by 8.3% in the first half of the year, driven by the volume effect and the reduction of FTEs, which are fully offsetting the development on the compensation and the staff cost in general. For the other expenses, our growth stayed significantly behind the inflation at the level of 3%, which is the result of the continuous optimizations in our physical premises and physical footprint, as well in other operating costs. The main item where we are continuing to invest and to improve our services towards our clients is the IT area. If you look at it from the positive dose perspective, our Cost-to-Income dropped below 50% on the reported basis in the first half of the year.
If you would adjust the Cost-to-Income Ratio for the regulatory charges, we would be approaching 43% in the first half of the year and declining by more than 200 basis points year-over-year. This is for the financial performance up to GOI, and I will hand over the floor to our CRO to comment the asset quality and the progress.
Thank you, Vladimir. Good afternoon, everyone. During the first half of the year, as we are saying, BRD continued to deliver a strong commercial development, despite weak economic growth, persistent high inflation, increased uncertainty, and still maintaining rigorous risk discipline. Our asset quality remains strong. The NPL ratios stood at precisely 2.68% at the end of June, compared with 2.49% at the end of March. We have a small bump on which I will come back later, and remains comfortably below the banking average of 2.9%. This performance reflects the effectiveness of our underwriting standards, proactive portfolio monitoring, and early risk identification. Yet we had a file, a single syndicated loan, which went into default, which explains why we have also this bump in the NPL as well as in the Cost of Risk.
Yet, at the same time, we maintain a strong NPL coverage ratio of 65.6%, providing a solid level of protection and demonstrating our prudent approach to risk provisioning. Looking across the segment, the retail portfolio continues to exhibit resilience, supported by disciplined origination practices and close monitoring of our customers' behavior. In the corporate segment, portfolio quality remains broadly sound, while the second quarter Cost of Risk was impacted by this single new corporate default. However, the portfolio dynamics remain healthy and fully consistent with our risk appetite and full-year expectations. As a result, the net Cost of Risk remained well contained at 52 basis points in H1 2026, and increased only marginally year-on-year. Overall, BRD continues to demonstrate that growth and prudent risk management go hand in hand. Then over to Vladimir.
Thank you, Philippe. I will continue with the capital position. Our capital position remained strong in the first half of 2026, staying at the level of 22% on the Capital Adequacy Ratio overall. If you look at the development year-over-year, the positive effects are linked to the retained earnings of 2025, positively contributing to the development as well, like our OCI reserves, were revalued positively, I think as well to our overall capital. From the negative point of view, Risk-Weighted Assets are growing, driven by the growth of our lending portfolio and lending activities, and offsetting partially the development. Year-over-year, at the capital adequacy, we are staying flattish at 22%, and compared to our overall capital requirement, we are running the business with roughly 300 basis points of management buffer compared to the requirement.
Therefore, our position remains solid and supporting further growth of our balance sheet. I will now hand over the floor to CEO for final remarks.
Yes. Thank you, Vladimir. I really don't want to bore you with, once again, on page 19 with all possible ratios, but we introduced this page just to give you kind of dashboards of how we performed financially and commercially. Also related to liquidity and capital. Again, as I started, we are satisfied with our H1 results. We are even more satisfied having in mind the adversities around us, the macro, the geopolitical uncertainty, the inflation, the fact that we also got, last year, this 4% tax on Turnover. It's not easy, neither for our clients on the household segment, small companies, SMEs, the more resilient ones being the large corporate, but overall, everyone knows that it's not easy. Despite that, we managed through origination, monitoring, and performance in terms of efficiency to sustain our plans and to perform the way we just presented to you.
I will not go, once again, through all ratios, but you can see them on page 19 of our presentation. That's all in all our message to you. Then, I would leave space and time for questions, if any.