Good afternoon. This is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Crédit Agricole's first quarter 2026 results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions by pressing star and one on your telephone. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Miss Clotilde L'Angevin, Deputy General Manager of Crédit Agricole. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Hello, everybody. I'm conscious that this is a very busy day for you, I'm going to try to be short. Starting on page four, to tell you that we have solid results this quarter for Crédit Agricole S.A., EUR 1.7 billion, despite a turbulent environment. All of the Q1 2025 figures here are presented in pro forma. For the Q1 2026, we don't change anything, but to compare it with the past, we consider that in the past, Banco BPM had been equity accounted at 20.1%. Now, net income therefore increased by 1.8 percentage points, sorry, pro forma, thanks to an increase in revenues to EUR 7 billion, supported by sustained activity, ongoing digitalization, and strong client capture. We also have strong operational efficiency.
The cost-to-income ratio improved by 0.6 percentage points quarter-on-quarter in CASA. We have well-controlled risks with cautious provisioning this quarter in the context of the conflicts in the Middle East. All of this leads to a strong profitability, and we're posting a high ROTE at 13.7%. CET1 ratio is at 11.4%, well above the 11% target, which is impacted notably by M&A operations. We increased our position this quarter in Banco BPM capital, now reaching 22.9%, since we decided to seize the opportunity of a dip in the share price in March to continue to build up our stake, but no change in our strategy. The group continues to develop.
We announced this quarter the acquisition of a small Ukrainian bank, Lviv, in the west of the country, that will allow Crédit Agricole Bank to strengthen its positions with SMEs and with corporates in the agri sector. We launched a couple weeks ago the European digital platform, Crédit Agricole Savings, in Germany, only 5 months after it was announced in our medium-term plan ACT 2028. On the next slide, you see the key figures. We have a good performance of the group, Crédit Agricole, with a strong increase in net income, 5.5%, sorry, driven by revenues, 2.8%, which reached this quarter the record level of EUR 10 billion.
In particular, this is thanks to the strong performance of regional banks' revenues, 7.8%, which benefited from a spectacular upturn in net interest income by 34%. There's a cautious provisioning in all of the business lines in the context of geopolitical uncertainty, which leads to an increase in cost of risk on outstandings over four rolling quarters this quarter, but it remains under control. Of course, we maintain a strong position in terms of solvency and liquidity. I talked to you about the impact of Banco BPM. We also have unfavorable market effects on insurance OCIs and on market RWAs for the CET1 of CASA. We also have a front-loading of the consumption of CACEIS' RWAs in order to accompany their customers. We can come to that a little bit later on when we talk about solvency.
Now, moving to slide seven, activity. Activity was sustained across all of the business lines this quarter. This supported, in fact, the revenue. What we can note this quarter is a strong customer capture, 600,000 new customers this quarter, 450,000 in France in retail banking. What's important is that it also benefited from increased digital acquisition in France and in Italy. We had client capture that was boosted by digital acquisition, in particular for LCL with the launch of L by LCL Pro, which explains the increase in customer capture for the professionals. 20% of capture on professionals was digital. Digital acquisition also explains 40% of client capture for Crédit Agricole Italia.
We're launching several 100% self-care digital solutions in France, in home loans, in savings, with the launch of full self-care securities accounts and share savings plans, and with a new life insurance contract, Orience. In the regional banks, we're gonna launch a full digital onboarding in a couple days. If I move business by business to activity, in retail banking in France, credit production was strong, even though this performance was mainly driven by regional banks' production in a very competitive market. Corporate and professionals', loan growth was 7%. In Italy, we had a very dynamic loan production for the corporates, 2x quarter-on-quarter, in a context of a competitive market. Production is very dynamic in Poland, in particular for individuals and in Egypt.
The loans outstanding and the on-balance sheet assets continued to grow in France and Italy. Also, the off-balance sheet assets. Therefore, asset gathering division posted a very dynamic quarter. Thanks to insurance, where we have an increase in premium income on all of the activities, savings and retirement, personal insurance, P&C. We had a record net inflows of EUR 5.7 billion, of which EUR 1.5 billion, thanks to the Oriance solution, and we reached 18 million contracts in P&C this quarter. We have a weather-related effect, impact, but activity is still very strong. For Amundi, we have very strong net inflows and growing AUMs. The medium to long-term inflows are strong, in particular, thanks to ETFs and index-based solutions, and activity is dynamic in the third-party distributions retirement solutions.
Finally, in wealth management, the AUMs are increasing, and you can note the fact that we finalized the acquisition of the wealth management customers of BNP in Monaco this quarter. For personal finance and mobility, production increased year-on-year despite the unfavorable conditions in the car markets that weighed on our mobility activity, and in particular on remarketing. We had an increase in the stock of used cars this quarter, production increased year-on-year for personal finance and mobility. Finally, in large customers division, the CIB posted its second-best quarter after the record level that it had reached in the first quarter of last year.
Excluding effects of past impact, CIB is stable at this level, thanks to an excellent performance of investment banking and despite the wait-and-see attitude of our corporate customers in financing activities and the fact that FICC was impacted by lower activity on primary markets. Finally, for CACEIS, we had a high level of settlement and delivery volumes. It was boosted by market volatility, and of course, we continue to transform our business after the integration of the European activities of RBC. This feeds into revenues on the next slide that increased by 0.9% this quarter.
If we reason on a like-for-like basis, i.e., if we exclude the Amundi US deconsolidation for EUR 90 million in the first quarter of last year and the impact of the first consolidation of ICG shares this quarter for EUR 68 million this quarter, revenues increased by 3.2%, sorry, Q1 to Q1. Like-for-l ike, all of the business lines contributed positively to the growth in revenues, except for the large customers division, which is impacted by a EUR 69 million FX effect. Asset gathering revenues decreased due to the scope effects, but excluding these two scope effects, we have an increase of EUR 59 million.
It's mainly thanks to higher management fees and performance fees at Amundi, which more than offset a slight decline in insurance revenues impacted by the weather-related events that I talked to you about, storms and floods in P&C, and impacted by a deterioration of market condition in savings and retirement that was mostly absorbed by the CSM. We have a residual revenue impact. For large customers, I was telling you that we have a very high quarter, second best after the record level that it reached in Q1 2025. For SFS, we have a positive price effect, which was offset this quarter by a change in the residual values of the cars in Drivalia. Drivalia, as you know, is a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole Auto Bank. This is why it has an impact on revenue.
For retail banking, we had a very strong upturn in net interest income for LCL, + 13%, and a stability of net interest income in Italy. We can see right now what we talked about in the medium-term plan for France, an increase in the net interest income, thanks to a reduction in the cost of resources, a normalization of the customer deposit mix and the rates effect, and also the gradual repricing of loans. Fees increased in all geographies. Finally, on the corporate center, we had favorable volatility effects. Moving to expenses, again, on a like-for-like basis, we have positive jaws, 1.7 percentage points. We do have a few positive factors, in particular, the favorable FX impact on CIB costs and decreased provisions for variable compensation. More importantly, operational efficiency is improving.
We have, this quarter, the full effect of the synergies for the CACEIS RBC operation, and therefore we can confirm EUR 100 million additional income in 2026 linked to this operation. The Degroof integration with Amundi is progressing also. We now have 40% of synergies that are realized. Amundi and Crédit Agricole Italia are expecting cost savings in the subsequent quarters. We talked about that at the end of last year. These positive jaws that we observe, we can observe them despite the fact that we continue to invest in our investments. We continue to invest in the transformation of LCL, as you can see here in retail banking.
We invest also in SFS for our Crédit Agricole Savings and development platform in Germany, for which the total costs are expected to be below EUR 50 million in 2026. Moving to cost of risk. Cost of risk, in fact, decreased this quarter compared to the Q4 2025, but increased by 32% compared to Q1 2025, mainly due to our prudent provisioning in the context of geopolitical and economic uncertainty. As you can see, most of the increase is due to Stage 1 and Stage 2 provisioning, about EUR 100 million, including scenario updates. We adjusted the weighting of the different scenarios. This is for about EUR 38 million. We added overlays, geographic and sectorial overlays related to the conflict in the Middle East, around EUR 28 million.
We have about EUR 60 million provisioning due to the Middle East conflict. We have other provisions that include legal risk that represent EUR 39 million, and those include an adjustment of EUR 17 million for the U.K. car loan litigation after the FCA released the conclusions of their consultation that they had launched at the end of last year. As you can see, besides these elements, the Stage 3 incurred cost of risk is very close to the Q1 2025 levels after a significant increase in Q4 2025. If we look at what happens by business line, half of Stage 3 and total cost of risk is explained by FFS, with CAPFM being the main contributor. The increase in cost of risk for CAPFM is mainly driven by these S1, S2 additions.
The Stage 3 provisions are relatively stable, and they're even decreasing, in fact, due to successful sales of NPL portfolios. The increase in CIB is essentially due to Stage 1 and Stage 2 provisions linked to the Middle Eastern conflict, and the cost of risk remains broadly low with investment-grade customers mainly, and a diversified and a balanced geopolitical risk. For French retail banking, the cost of risk is under control after a strong increase in the Q4. The default flow remains steady, both for LCL and the regional banks, and it's mainly driven by professionals and SMEs. What we're doing is we're continuing to monitor quite closely the same sectors that we talked about last year: retail, distribution, automobile transportation for LCL, and for the regional banks, real estate professionals, construction and farmers.
In Italy, cost of risk is decreasing and credit quality indicators are improving. To conclude on this, there's no surge in loan loss provisions. We have an annualized cost of risk on outstandings that decreased Q1, Q4, and our credit quality indicators remain at a very good level. We have the NPLs that are stable. We have coverage ratio for CASA and loan loss reserves that are increasing, which will allow us to absorb surges in Stage 3 cost of risk going forward. As you know, our provisioning is always prudent, and that's also why, as I said, we remain cautious, and we continue to monitor closely these sectors that I was talking about. Skipping slide 11 to move on to the slide 12 on income. In fact, we have a solid income in a volatile environment.
I just wanted to make two comments. The fact that we have equity accounted entities that are increasing. We have a decrease for SFS for leases related to losses on remarketing activity in the current automobile context. We have an unfavorable base effect in China. We have an up for asset gathering related to the ICG first consolidation impact. This is a one-off of EUR 85 million. We also have a Victory Capital scope effect, which is the run contribution this quarter, thanks to synergies. We now have ICG at 5.2% over the rest of the year. Next quarters, we're gonna have a regular contribution in our equity accounts on ICG. For this time, it's a one-off.
You have to recall that we're benefiting this quarter from the fact that we do not bear minority interest on CACEIS any longer, compared to EUR 35 million per quarter in the Q1 2025. Gross operating income is increasing on a like-to-like basis by 5.5%. We have 1.8% net income growth to EUR 1,676 million. A very strong performance this quarter, thanks to strong activity and good operational efficiency. Solvency. We have a very high level of capital this quarter, and the CET1 ratio is at 11.4%, which is still well above our target at 11%, thanks to retained results. We did have a decrease from 11.8% to 11.4% due to a certain number of elements.
First, we have organic growth, 23 basis points. In particular, with an impact of CIB, which accounts for 14 basis points. Why? We have a couple of elements. We can come back to that as afterwards. We have, in particular, a market impact on the RWAs, and we also have a frontloading of the annual RWA budget in the first quarter for CACEIS in a context of strong activity in March to support the customers of CACEIS. That's the first dimension. Second, we have an M&A impact, 17 basis points, out of which we have 14 basis points linked to the increase in our stake in Banco BPM to 22.9% that I was talking about.
In fact, this gives me the opportunity to mention the fact that in our past acquisitions, we completed the analysis that we did at the end of last year that showed that we had met our ROI criteria. In addition to these figures, we computed the average return on capital. You have that in the annex, and it's around 18%. A quite profitable M&A past acquisitions. Organic growth, M&A. Finally, we have a methodological impact with CRR III adjustments, and we have market effects on the insurance OCIs due to the rate spread and equity fluctuations by 4 basis points. All in all, we remain at a very strong level of CET1 ratio for CASA, 11.4%, which allows us to provision EUR 0.26 per share in terms of dividends.
The RWAs are increasing also due to a foreign exchange impact for CACIB. This foreign exchange impact has no effect on the CET1 because, as you know, we immunize our CET1 ratio against adverse foreign exchange fluctuations on the dollar by neutralizing the impact on the numerator. You do have that in the increase in the RWAs. Moving to the slide on the CET1 ratio of Crédit Agricole Group, we have very strong capital at this level. As you know, our objective is not to accumulate capital at the level of CASA. The relevant figure for the group is that of Group Crédit Agricole. We're very comfortably above our SREP requirement, which as you know, has increased by 50 basis points this quarter due to the increase in the systemic buffer.
We're still very comfortable with 670 basis points above the requirement. We have more or less the same impact that we had for CASA that I talked about. We have a little bit more limited impact of Banco BPM due to the exemption threshold that I was talking to you about last time. RWAs are increasing a little bit due to technical adjustments on the Basel IV impact on the corporate RWAs of the regional banks. The leverage ratio is very comfortable as well as the TLAC and the MREL ratio. On liquidity, on the next slide, very comfortable liquidity positions, very high level of liquidity reserves, EUR 475 billion. The LCR and NSFR ratios are excellent.
Just to tell you that almost two-thirds of our funding plan had already been completed during the first quarter, we're very comfortable also in terms of funding plan. As you can see here, we have stable customer deposits and very diversified and granular deposits. On the next slide on transitions, you know, we presented new targets in our ACT 2028 plan. Our objective, as you know, is to be a leader in customer capture in technology and of course, a leader in transition. We reaffirmed our net zero commitments. We have new targets which are the following. One, to reach a green brown ratio of 90/10. We're well on track to reach this. Our second target is to reach EUR 240 billion in financing of environmental and social transition.
The split today is 65% environment and 35% social. Again, we're well on track. Finally, CACIB should reach EUR 1 billion in annual revenues from sustainable finance. Just note that on the 24th of April, Amundi announced that it would be the well, asset manager of the GGBI Fund. That's something on which we're proud as well. Coming to the last slide that I'm going to comment, slide 17, to conclude by saying that net income increased this quarter pro forma for CA Auto Bank and the group, thanks to strong activity in all of the businesses, in asset management, in insurance, thanks also to strong improvement in net interest income in France.
We conquered customers, we accelerated digitalization, we started to roll out our medium-term plan with the launch of this European digital platform, CAC Savings, in Germany. We announced the acquisition this quarter of a small Ukrainian bank. We increased our position in Banco BPM capital that now reaches 22.9%. Revenues increased to EUR 7 billion, thanks to this activity, digitalization, and strong cap-client capture. Operational efficiency is strong, with favorable jaws and an improvement in cost income ratio. Our risks are well controlled. We have cautious provisioning in the context of the conflict in the Middle East. All of this leads to strong profitability. We're posting a high ROTE ratio at 13.7%. These are very strong and solid results in an uncertain environment. I'm going to stop here. Thank you very much for your attention. We can now open the floor to questions.
Thank you. This is the conference operator. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one. At this time, the first question is from Giulia Miotto, Morgan Stanley.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I have two. First of all, on Banco BPM, you have increased the stake to 22.9%, but you have room to increase more to 29%. How should we think about this one? Shall we assume that whenever there is a dip, you know, you are interested to increase this? Also, in the past, you've stated that your preferred outcome would be a merger. Is that still how you're thinking about that? That's the first question. The second one is instead on the launch in Germany. You said it's a couple of weeks old. Can you perhaps share some stats on how that is going, how you launched, what type of clients you're attracting? That would be super interesting.
Sorry, I actually have a final one, a number question on SFS. Revenues were down quarter-on-quarter, costs were up. Any comment on the evolution of this business? Thank you.
All right. Thank you, Giulia, for your questions. First on Banco BPM. First of all, maybe to explain a little bit, we have an authorization by the ECB to cross the 20% threshold, and therefore exercise significant influence without taking control. We seize the opportunity of a dip in the stock price of Banco BPM to go beyond our 20.1% stake. We did this for market reasons. We're not changing our long-term strategy, and our long-term strategy is really to be able to contribute to the value creation of Banco BPM. That's why we submitted our own list of candidates for the directors of Banco BPM, as well as our own list of candidates for the statutory auditor audit role, in order to offer a positive contribution to governments holding more than 20% of capital.
Our objective was to promote the creation of long-term value by presenting candidates with very solid and relevant expertise. We had four directors that were selected at the end of the AGM, which corresponds, in fact, to our stake of 22.9%. We're not ruling ever going out beyond. You have to bear in mind that the authorization that we requested from the ECB was to cross the 20.1% threshold, and therefore exercise significant influence without taking control. On your question regarding the different scenarios, as always, there's a lot of scenarios that are possible. Most of them don't depend on us. They're positive for us because we have a strong position.
We want to position ourselves as a long-term partner of Banco BPM. I just want to remind you of the fact that our strategy has not changed in Italy. We have this partnership with Banco BPM. We really want to develop our universal banking model in the long term, in particular with Crédit Agricole Italia, for which we want to develop digitalization synergies with the other businesses. We also want to develop these businesses, which are all present in Italy. No change in this strategy, but our strong position allows us to be comfortable and as a long-term partner of Banco BPM. That's on your first question. On your second question, yes, indeed, it's a couple of weeks old, but we're confident as to the success of this savings platform in Germany.
Just to recall, in the medium-term plan, we said that we wanted to target 2 million customers. We're now at 1 million customers. We have EUR 15 billion in on-balance sheet savings, which we want to double in Germany. The savings platform is going to help us do that. In fact, it's relatively simple because we already have the legal entity, Creditplus. What we're doing is we're building with a very low cost, in fact, it's less than EUR 10 million, this savings platform that will be turned into an app at the end of the year in order to provide also day-to-day banking. What we consider to be our competitive edge is the fact that compared to a lot of competitors who have a limited number of on-balance sheet solutions, we have seven offers in terms of on-balance sheet savings.
This is going to be interesting for the targets that we have, which are mass affluent and affluent customers. Down the line, what we want to do is we want to expand by plugging onto that the off-balance sheet solutions, i.e., Amundi, Crédit Agricole Assurances, to really expand on the offer. Even with these seven products that we have, we consider that we already have a competitive edge. That was on Germany. On SFS, maybe if we look on SFS maybe a little bit more widely, because we have a certain number of drivers for SFS. We have consumer finance per se, for which we have strong positive price effects, and then we have a revenue impact of the second dimension, which is mobility. How is this working in terms of mobility?
Remember in the Q4, we had talked about the renewal of remarketing values of the vehicles for leases. Leases is equity accounted. We also have leasing activity in Crédit Agricole Bank, which re-represents revenues for us. What happened in the Q1 was that in the first quarter, we have, as you know, an automobile market that is still slowing down, and this has impacted some of our partners, particular in electric cars. What we did for Crédit Agricole Bank was to adjust the residual value of our vehicles portfolio, in particular in the U.K. and in Italy. Production is increasing for Crédit Agricole Bank, both compared to Q1 2025 and compared to Q4 2025.
We have a production that is increasing, but we have a negative impact of this revision of residual value at Drivalia, and we also have an impact at leases, which is due most now to a decrease in car resale performance due to the increase in the stock of used vehicles. We have to kind of sum it up. We have an automobile market that is depressed, and in particular with a certain number of players with which we have strong commercial activity ties, who have observed an increase in the stock of used cars. This has an impact on the residual value and the remarketing value of our vehicles. Down the line, we're developing the drivers of profitability for mobility generally.
Value-driven pricing, diversification of distribution channels, the improvement of remarketing processes with IT tools efficiency. Of course, the evolution market is gonna be key. Of course, there is sensitivity. There is sensitivity of the residual values that every quarter has to be adjusted. We have these drivers going forward, which allow us to be confident on the, in particular, the restoration of profitability for leases.
Thanks.
The next question is from Jacques-Henri Gaulard, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes. Good morning, Clotilde. Good morning, everyone. If I may come back on SFS for a minute. I think the issue I have with it is the fact that, you know, it's sort of supposed to actually improve, it seems the improvement really takes a lot of time. It's more about getting a sense of what you think this business is going to turn around, both at revenue level but also on the equity accounted side. When can you say, Okay, we've definitely turned the page of that, we're going to be able to actually look forward to, I don't know, second half of this year of 2027? That's the first question. The second is on capital. I mean, really, it happens, you had the consolidation of BPM.
It's more the fact that everything being equal, do you think that we can proxy the CET1 towards the end of the year as being more or less now the retained earnings times 3, whatever that is? Are you expecting any sort of turbulence that could actually derail from that? Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you, Jacques-Henri. In terms of inflection, we have to be very cautious because we do depend on the automobile markets. We do have, as I was saying, a strong sensitivity of the remarketing value of our automobiles to the stock of the vehicles, of the used car vehicles. This stock of the used car vehicles also depends on the capacity, the production capacity of a lot of our partners. For example, we're confident, for example, that Tesla is going to pick up. GAC, which is our partner in China, also. There are more difficulties for Stellantis, but this is something that really depends on the market.
Profitability will pick up over the year. It's true that we will have an effect of, in particular, the remarketing value of the used cars in the Q4. We will gonna carry a little bit of that effect from the next quarters because it does have an impact on the price that we are going to resell our cars at. There will be an impact that will continue in 2026. We are in a reversal, of course, compared to the Q4 of 2025.
In terms of CET1, maybe to just take the opportunity of your question to really come back a little bit to the different elements that can explain the evolution that we have here in terms of the capital for CASA. You're talking about what we can see by the end of the year. The guidance that I can give you for the end of the year is more that of for ACT 2028. For ACT 2028, We talked to you about the fact that, you know, we would have strategic flexibility of 150 basis points by the end of 2028 that could be used for M&A or for an exceptional dividend if we do not use that type of M&A.
This quarter, we have used about 16 basis points, 17 basis points for M&A. Excluding that, we're still very comfortable with our strategic flexibility at the end of the plan. We're very comfortable also with the CET1 ratio that should remain comfortable by the end of 2026. Why is that? Is that we're gonna have indeed retained earnings. What's also interesting is that a part of the impact of the RWAs of CACIB this quarter is in particular due to market activities, about EUR 3.1 billion in terms of market activities, as you can see on the CET1 slide. We can say that roughly two-thirds of that are potentially reversible if the markets normalize. We have a volatility effect on the SVaR of the trading portfolio. We have a trading book counterparty risk.
These two effects are effects that could be reversible. That's maybe if we, if we break down the RWAs of CACIB, I guess we can say we have three dimensions. One is an FX effect, EUR 1 billion, linked to the appreciation of the dollar between the Q4 and the Q1. Two is this effect linked to the M&A activities of which the two-thirds are potentially reversible, and the rest is a front-loading of organic growth. We often have a front-loading of organic growth for the CIB in the first half of the year, expect they're going to have the impact on revenue of that also by the end of the year. Again, all in all, we're comfortable with our CET1 ratio end of the year and 2028, and more importantly, with the strategic flexibility we were talking about in the medium-term plan.
Thanks a lot, Clotilde.
The next question is from Delphine Lee, JPMorgan.
Yes, good afternoon, Clotilde. Thank you for taking my questions. First one is, just double-checking the guidance on net interest income, that for LCL remains high single digit, because obviously, that would imply a slowdown compared to Q1. What do you factor in for Livret A in your guidance? Secondly, on Cariparma, I think you previously guided for the year to have a bit of pressure on NII. Is that still the case, and is it something we should expect for the coming quarters? My last question is, just to come back on Banco BPM. Just wanted to have a little bit your thoughts around sort of the M&A scenarios. I know you mentioned they're, you know, not in your control.
It looks like, you know, discussions have moved from Cariparma to now MPS. Just trying to understand a little bit sort of what you think could be possible for the group in terms of defending partnerships. Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you, Delphine, for your questions. Maybe first on net interest income for LCL, there is no change in our high single-digit guidance for 2026. Even though it's true that the rate scenario, in fact, you still have these three effects that I was talking to you about before. On the asset side, you have a repricing, and the marginal increase in the rate scenario is favorable in this respect. Long-term rates increase, it's favorable for this repricing. It depends on the competitive capacity of LCL to reprice, but the rates are increasing in LCL in the Regional Banks. First point.
You have, on the liability side, you have the short-term rate, where you can have a slight increase that can decrease the positive impact because you know that for the liabilities, the positive effect is when the cost of resources decreases. We're well-hedged against any increase in short-term rates because this time around, we don't have a real shock to the net interest to the rates. We should not have any significant shift in the liabilities mix. Also, our macro hedging is quite strong, in particular for inflation. Things are relatively positive. We have no change in this high single-digit guidance for 2026, even though we have to always be careful as to the repricing capacity in a competitive market. For Livret A.
For Livret A, we usually have a tendency to hedge the Livret A. We could consider that you have, for example, EUR 90 billion impact for the regional banks, EUR 90 billion pre-centralization of Livret A for the regional banks. You have about EUR 18 billion for LCL pre-centralization. You could consider an impact of the decrease in Livret A on that, which you can calculate, which is going to be a couple of hundred million . This would be before hedging, and we have a tendency to hedge, the impact on Livret A for us is relatively neutral. For your question on Crédit Agricole Italia. We have a very competitive housing market in Italy.
We have, in particular, renegotiations which have an impact, and in fact, they did have an impact this quarter on the loans outstanding for the home loans, which decreased in Crédit Agricole Italia this quarter. I talked about very strong increase in corporate and loan production but i n housing, we have a market which is very competitive. Despite this, we were quite happy to have the stabilization of net interest income. We're still prudent in terms of our guidance, so no change in our guidance in this respect, i.e., maybe, just below zero or around zero this year before picking up afterwards in the coming years. M&A for Banco BPM.
Well, in fact, for M&A for Banco BPM, even though there's been lots of noise, rumors, et cetera, regarding Banco BPM, for us, things have not really changed, except the fact that since we now have four seats at the board, we will participate in the analysis of any scenarios that could present themselves to Banco BPM. We would participate in any decision regarding these different scenarios. That's all I can tell you for now. We now have seats on the board, and so we're going to be a player. We are at the table, we are a player in these different scenarios. To tell you the truth, as I was saying before, a lot of these scenarios do not depend on us.
I think most of them are positive because as I was saying, we are a long-term player in Italy. We have many ways that we can develop in Italy, for example, organically through Crédit Agricole Italia, organically through our businesses. All of this is positive.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Delphine Lee.
Next question is from Sharath Kumar, Deutsche Bank.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Firstly, on asset quality, your Middle East exposure is at EUR 21 billion seems higher than peers. Can you elaborate on the nature and the risks in case of a prolonged conflict in the Middle East? More broadly on asset quality, what risks do you see if oil prices remain well above EUR 100 a barrel for a prolonged period? A couple of clarifications. Firstly, on the capital consumption for Banco BPM, when you increase the stake in 2025, the CET1 consumption was proportionately smaller, commensurate to the stake increase versus the -14 basis points impact you have now. If you can clarify on that. Lastly, again, a follow-up on specialized financial services.
Can you quantify the used car sales contribution maybe in 2025 and first quarter just to see how much is the delta? On equity accounted entities, previously you said double-digit contribution from leases for 2026. Do you stick to this view? Thank you.
All right. Okay. Thank you. If I look at your question on loan loss reserves, if I move to page 47 in the annex, you have this level of loan loss reserves, which is at EUR 22.6 billion for Group Crédit Agricole and EUR 9.7 billion for Crédit Agricole S.A. As you can see here, you could do that if you have even longer period, you can see that prudent provisioning for us is in our DNA. In fact, we are provisioning, but we have always been doing so in the face of uncertainties, geopolitical uncertainties. This is also why we have this very high level of loan loss reserves, even though, as you know, the impaired loans ratio, as you can see on page 47, is stable.
This is also why we have this very high coverage ratio of 82.6% at the level of the group. We have with our Stage 1 and 2 outstanding loan loss reserves, EUR 9.3 billion. We have about 3 years of cost of risk. For CASA, with the EUR 3.4 billion, we have about 1.5 years of cost of risk. This is in fact a structural policy that we have, which is always to provision in a very prudent manner the risks. This is what we did this quarter. Of course, this is something that can therefore absorb any surge in Stage 3 cost of risk going forward.
In terms of capital consumption, I don't want to go back to the very technical discussion that we had in the Q4 regarding the first consolidation of Banco BPM. Just to tell you a little bit how things are working when you have these 14 basis points for the CET1, is that, in fact, when we increase our share from 20.1% to 22.9%, in fact, we're increasing it based upon an equity accounted value, which we had integrated around EUR 10. We have a goodwill now based upon that. Any additional purchase of shares of Banco BPM has to be done with a goodwill. You have a goodwill impact that is directly deducted, right?
Because last year when we did the first consolidation, we didn't have any goodwill because we consolidated at cost, and so we had bad will, right? Now you have a goodwill impact first, around EUR 120 million, and you also have an RWA impact, which is different from CASA, between CASA and Group Crédit Agricole , because for CASA, as you know, we have saturated the exemption of French fo-holds for the more than 10% participation, where we have not done that for CET1. That's why the impact for CASA is 14 basis points, whereas the impact for the group is 5 basis points. Your last question on used cars. In fact, we have a couple dozen impacts of the residual value of cars for Drivalia that compensate for a favorable price effect for SFS on revenues.
You have just about around EUR 30 million positive impact on price effect and around EUR 30 million impact this quarter for Drivalia of the residual value of used cars. For leasing, we have, of course, a remarketing issue. What I can tell you about that is that we're having a situation where we're just about breakeven for leases, and we still confirm the guidance that I gave you in the Q4 call, which was a single-digit contribution for 2026.
Thank you.
The next question is from Stefan Stalmann, Autonomous Research.
Afternoon. I have two questions, please. The first one is on your organic risk-weighted asset growth that you highlighted. It seems that you have actually seen a very major expansion of your exposure to non-bank financial institutions, so NBFI, which obviously receives quite a lot of market scrutiny these days. Can you maybe add a little bit of color of on why you have grown this portfolio so rapidly in the first quarter? The second point goes back to your ROIC disclosure. That's very helpful. Thank you very much. It looks like you spent EUR twelve and a half billion on your acquisitions over this time horizon, but your regulatory capital requirements were about EUR 4 billion lower. Can you maybe explain what exactly drove that discount, and which transactions in particular, required so much less regulatory capital than what you spent on these deals? Thank you.
All right. First, a question on our exposure. As you can see on page 50 in the annex, we have our exposure to other non-banking, sorry, financial activities that have not changed significantly. This figure is something that takes into account a lot of elements that are not only, for example, hedge funds, but you have securitization vehicles, you have monetary funds, you have hedge funds, you have broker-dealers, investments, you have all of the insurance banks outside of the EU. This figure, for example, when you have securitization by CACEIS for its customers, it's our NBFI, and it's a figure that in fact adds up a lot of bits and pieces, and that's difficult to interpret. What I want to tell you regarding the fact.
The issue that has worried maybe a lot of observers recently is regarding our debt funds exposure and so on private debt. Our exposure as of end of March is EUR 2.9 billion, very low, 0.2% of our commercial lending. As you can see on page 49, we gave you a certain number of elements regarding the LBO exposure, which is very low, commercial real estate, which is again low with a lot of investment grade, and of course, our Middle East exposure, which is in fact mainly on the sovereign and state-owned exposures. Now, thank you, Stefan Stalmann, for highlighting, in fact, the work we did, the team's work to calculate, in fact, the return on capital of these operations.
These operations of EUR 12.5 billion that I was talking about, in fact, we looked at the operations that it is possible to calculate an ROIC on. You have on big operations, you're gonna have a lot of Amundi operations. You have Pioneer, for example, you have Lyxor, you have Sabadell Asset Management. We have also Indosuez operations with the group. We have CACEIS, for example, for Santander. Of course, the buyback of the Santander Securities Services share in CACEIS. All of these operations have different figures in terms of regulated capital.
What I wanted to stress about was the fact that to calculate this return on invested capital, what we take into account is we take the net income group share, and on the denominator, we take the effect of the minority interest, the goodwill, and we suppose that we have 11% of RWAs. All in all, the calculations are different for each of these types of operations that I talked about, but they have very different maturities. The ROI is different according to the timing. The ROIC is different according to the timing. This is a picture of these operations as of 2025. What we wanted to insist upon was the fact that we have, you know, the very strict financial criteria that we talked about in the medium-term plan, ROI accretive.
This is a figure that shows you that we have this accretive nature of our activity, but also the integration capacity and the alignment with our strategy. This is what we wanted to insist upon and insisting upon the fact that the 18% figure is quite strong.
Could I just follow up on this, please? I mean, the common denominator here in the slide seems to be that from a regulatory capital perspective, you need a lot less capital than what you actually spent on the acquisitions. I'm just curious about why this gap is there. Is there any color that you could add there?
I think what it really depends on the nature of the operation and the nature of the businesses that made these acquisitions, Amundi, CACEIS, Indosuez. When we look at the denominator through each one, the way we look at it is that we take off the impact of goodwill, minority interest, and we consider that we have 11% of RWAs, which is in fact a way that we transpose the targets that we have for CET1 to the different businesses. It's a de facto internal allocation of RWAs between our businesses. So this is the way we look at the profitability of these operations business by business, comparing them to the target which we have, which is 11% of CET1.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Benoît Valleaux, Oddo BHF.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Two short question on my side on insurance. The first one in P&C. You have an increase of your combined ratio of 2.5 percentage point versus last year. You mentioned a very high level of net cat losses in Q1. I just like to know if you can quantify in absolute terms this level of net cat Q1 this year versus, and the change versus Q1 last year just to see all revenues in P&C would have evolved without this net cat event. The second question on the life side, very strong activity in Q1. Nevertheless, the CSM decreased by 1.9 percentage point due to negative market impact. I'd just like to know what would have been the increase without this market impact into the CSM. Thank you.
Hi. Thank you, Benoît, for your questions that are always very interesting on insurance. Regarding the weather-related claims, in fact, the growth impact is just above EUR 200 million this quarter. It's a growth impact linked to storms on the Atlantic front, to floods. This impact is quite close to, if you do a rule of thumb, to what we could expect with the market share of P&C Pacifica, which is about 12% market share for this type of insurance. This is the growth impact. Thanks to a certain number of absorption mechanisms, thanks to reversals of provisions, what we can say is that the impact in terms of variation Q1 to one of this weather-related claims is below EUR 50 million. That's the first point.
The second point is that indeed, we always look now for insurance at the CSM, and what's important for us is always to say, and this is what we say this quarter, that we have a new business contribution that is higher than the CSM allocation. You're right to point out the fact that we had a decrease in March compared to December due to these market effects. We have market effects on revenues in Crédit Agricole Assurances due to the equity dimension, but we also have, and that's the most, the majority of it, the market effects in insurance feed into the CSM. If we did not have this marketed impact, we.
I can say we would have about +8% impact, +8% growth of the CSM between December and March, which is quite unlogical if you look at the very strong and record net inflows this quarter of insurance, which was, as you can see, EUR 5.7 billion this quarter. This is reflected in the growth excluding market effects of the CSM, which remains at a very high level, EUR 27 billion.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Tarik El Mejjad, Bank of America.
Hi. Good afternoon. Just a very quick two questions, please. First one is on the capital treatment of future growth or provisioning. If that goes both ways and how often you would adjust basically that provisioning is every quarter or is this your own judgment? Secondly, on the-
Hey, Tarik. Hi. Can you repeat the question? Sorry. The capital provision on what? Sorry.
On growth. You know, the growth you have on your capital trajectory in the quarter that you took up front.
Okay. The frontloading of RWAs in CACEIS, that's what you're talking about, right?
Correct.
Okay.
Sorry, been a long day. Then the, on CASA, on the, yes, CASA's, I mean, Crédit Agricole EUR 800 million investments in CASA. I mean, I know you say as Crédit Agricole, but, I mean, liquidity now is getting even lower. What do you think the rationale and the end game there? Thank you.
All right. Thank you, Tarik, for your questions. It's been a long day, I know, for all of you guys, so thank you for listening to all of these elements that are oftentimes technical, but which reflect the diversity of our group. This frontloading. Of the RWAs of CACEIS, sorry, is in fact you not that special because we do have a tendency to frontload the RWAs in order to frontload the effect that we're gonna have in revenues. This time we frontloaded the organic growth to take an advantage of the active markets in March. This dimension is not per se reversible. It's a frontloading.
What's reversible is the two-thirds that I was talking about of the impact on RWAs of the market activities, the volatility impact, and the counterparty issuer spreads for the trading book counterparty risk. If you take that off, if you take off the FX effect, the rest of the growth of CACEIS, which you're gonna have between EUR 1 billion and EUR 2 billion, that's the frontloaded organic growth. You have a little bit which is related, by the way, to rating downgrades in line with increased provisions, the rating downgrades, when is that gonna stop? It's difficult to say. I would not say that the frontloading is reversible.
I would say that the frontloading, we hope to see the impact on results in the coming quarters of this frontloading. Now, the SAS, as you know, we are SAS Rue La Boétie, which is our today 63.5% shareholder. We are, as you know, the daughter, they are the mother, so I cannot comment on what they're saying. What I can tell you is that they are a very sophisticated investor that knows us very well. This program, as you know, they said that they would remain below 65%. They reiterated that they had said before. This program is a way for our regional bank, the mother, to really take stock of the fact that we have strong profitability and that it's a good idea to invest in Crédit Agricole S.A. for the future.
They trust very much our medium-term plan, which is based on customer capture, which is based on transformation, which will provide strong profitability, EUR 8.8 billion in net income at the end of the medium-term plan. This is very much aligned with their objectives, which is to develop a customer capture, to develop performance profitability, to develop capital liquidity at the level of the group. All of this is very consistent. There is no change in any form of end game from as much as I know of. For us, it's really the fact that they're investing in a very profitable stake, which is CASA.
Thank you.
The next question is from Alberto Artoni, Intesa Sanpaolo.
Good afternoon. Thank you, thank you for taking my questions. I have just two quick ones. The first is in capital. I've just noticed that there are 11 basis points of capital consumption this quarter, which relate to methodologies and model changes. I was wondering if this 11 basis points is on top or it can be referred to the slide that you presented when the ACT 2028 plan was introduced, in which you allowed for 40 basis point regulatory and methodology increases during the plan. Is this part of this 40? It means that there are 29 left, or is still 40 to go and this is on top?
All right. Thank you for your question.
Okay.
In fact, when we look at the medium-term plan, we look excluding CRR III impacts. This 11 basis points impact is in fact an end of the year impact of CRR III. It is excluded from the 40 basis points of methodology, because what we do in the medium term plan is that we consider everything to be besides CRR III impact. In the medium term plan, if you recall, we had talked about a CRR III impact, which was 50 basis points. Then we added on this 40 basis points, which was regulatory methodological impact, including FRTB, which is beyond CRR III. What I think we can say is that this is kind of the end today of CRR III impact, mostly. Mostly.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. My second question, just a quick clarification on the Banco BPM stake. Do the regional banks have a direct stake in Banco BPM? At the group level, what is the stake? Is it higher than 22.9% or is it 22.9%?
No, it's 22.9%.
Okay.
Strictly 22.9% CASA stake.
Okay, okay. The regional banks do not hold any stake in Banco BPM?
No. Indirectly, of course, CASA. No, our stake is 22.9%, and it's CASA.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Chris Hallam, Goldman Sachs.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just two. The first is a bit of a follow-up to Jacques-Henri Gaulard's question earlier on capital. Could you just, maybe just remind us what you can already see coming on capital through the remaining 9 months of the year? Because if I look over the last 5 years or so, you typically haven't really seen an increase in the CET1 ratio through the second, third, fourth quarter, you know, for a variety of reasons, including M&A. Consensus as of today now has a 60 basis point increase from here to year-end. Any steer you could give on that would be, would be super helpful. Again, it's a bit of a follow-up to an earlier question. Not regarding the 14 basis points from BPM, but just how much capital is the whole BPM stake currently consuming?
Put another way, if you sold it today at the latest price, how much capital would be released? Thank you.
All right. It's difficult to tell you, Chris, for the capital. I prefer to give you guidance regarding the medium-term plan. For the medium-term plan, we're comfortable with our 11% target and our 150 basis points flexibility to which we take off the 16 basis points that we have today. That's all I can tell you, but I can tell you that we're not worried about capital going forward, also because we always know that we can develop also the optimizations, the securitizations that we can do, in particular with SRTs. As you know, our SRTs are lower than that of what our peers are doing today. Now for Banco BPM. For Banco BPM, we have a EUR 3 billion stake that we equity accounted at the end of last year.
Now we have an increase in that which we bought at the share price, of course. You have to add to that the share price impact. In any case, this capital impact of the equity accounted value, plus the impact of the increase in the share package represents about EUR 120 million in terms of goodwill. This is something that will generate in terms of equity accounted value. It will generate based upon, of course, the income of Banco BPM, something around EUR 100 million every quarter in terms of P&L impact.
Okay, thank you.
The next question is a follow-up from Sharath Kumar, Deutsche Bank.
Apologies for following up. Just two quick ones. Firstly, on LCL's equity contribution, I think you said double-digit contribution during the fourth quarter earnings. Today, I heard you say single-digit contribution, if you can clarify. Secondly, on interim dividend, can you confirm if the policy is to pay 50% of the first half net profit in October? Thank you.
All right. Thank you. For leases, what I'm telling you when I'm talking about double-digit contribution is talking about the year contribution for the year 2026. Here we were just about breakeven in the first quarter. You can see that that's gonna pick up because what I'm confirming is the double-digit contribution to yearly net income. Yes, for the interim, what we're going to do is we're going to apply a 50% payout ratio on the 15th of October based upon the first half year net income, we're really adopting market practice in this respect.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Ms. L'Angevin, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.
All right. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. I'm really feeling for you in this very long day. I just wanted to tell you that we have our next meeting for you guys, which is the workshop that we're organizing for LCL, which is on the 26th of May. Sorry. Thank you, Cécile. On the 26th of May. We're gonna be very happy to see you at that time. That's our next meeting. Of course, we have the general assembly just before that on the 20th of May in Saint-Brieuc in Brittany, where we hope there's gonna be a lot of sun. Looking forward to see you guys there. Have a very relaxing weekend after this long week of earnings calls. Bye-bye, everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.