Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our capital markets update. I'm pleased that financial analysts covering Commerzbank have largely joined our team session, while everybody else participates in the webcast. In the next two hours, our CEO, Manfred Knof, and our CFO, Bettina Orlopp, will present to you our strategic and financial plan until 2027, and both will be happy to answer your questions in the Q&A session. Presentations will take around 50 minutes, so we have more than an hour for Q&A. I will give some technical guidance before we start Q&A, but now I would like to open the floor to Manfred Knof for the presentation.
Good morning, everybody. When I started as CEO of Commerzbank almost three years ago, the bank was not in good shape. Today, I'm pleased to call the turnaround of Commerzbank a success story. We have delivered on Strategy 2024, and now we are moving forward to earn cost of capital. Let me highlight the major achievements so far. We were very well on track to exceed our financial targets for 2024. This morning, Bettina presented the very good financial performance of the first three quarters, 2023, with an almost doubled net result. The significantly improved profitability also paved the way for the return into the DAX index. This was definitely a major event for our staff and for many of our clients. Also, the rating agency acknowledged our financial performance with a single A rating of both S&P and Moody's.
Besides strong support from rates, the improved financials are the result of our successful business transformation. Our new and much leaner business setup is in place. I will come to the key cornerstones in a minute. I would like to highlight that the transformation required massive efforts of all our staff, and without the painful but necessary restructuring, our cost base would have been hit hard by inflation. We knew that this transformation means significant change for customers, and so far, we can be satisfied with the high customer loyalty and the very low customer and revenue churn. From originally EUR 300 million revenue churn in the plan for 2024, up until now, less than one-third has materialized. But we will not rest on this and work hard every day by day to justify the trust of our customers.
Last but not least, sustainability and our goal to become net zero by 2050 has become an integral part of our business, with significant achievements already. Let's now take a closer look at our new business model. In our German business with Private and Small-Business Customers, it's about scale in the mass market and individual solutions for wealthy clients. We took the clear and important decision to follow a two-brand strategy to reflect the different needs of our 11 million customers. Fulfilling these needs requires excellent digital solutions. We have made strong improvements in our digital offering and are well aware that this is an ongoing task and requires further investments. The digital solutions complement our streamlined branch-based business. For the important things in life, we offer our clients personal advice in one of our 400 branches in Germany.
Everything else can be done at our advisory center as personal remote channel. With this, we have found the right setup for modern banking in Germany. This is a strong foundation for the future revenues, although it might require still some time until all customers got used to it. In corporate clients, connectivity to Germany, Austria and Switzerland is the guiding principle for our business setup. The focus is clearly on the needs of corporate Germany and the Mittelstand. With a well-established clients and sector coverage model and a presence in 43 countries covering all relevant trade corridors, we will further strengthen our leading position in Germany. As with private customers, digital offerings play a crucial role for future business success. Already 2/3 of our corporate clients use the online channels for their banking operations.
This highlights the importance of further IT investments to ensure competitive offerings and a superior customer experience. The transformation in our corporate clients division comes with a strong focus on value capital deployment. RWA efficiency of the corporate portfolio, measured by revenues over RWA, has increased significantly from an average of 4.4% in 2022 to currently 7.7% today. The return profile of each client relationship is and will remain on the top of the divisional management agenda. Regarding sustainability as an integral part of the business model, key is a steadily increasing product offering for private customers and strong support of corporate clients in their green transformation. With a new business model in place and the steady delivery in the transformation of the bank, our targets for 2024 are within reach.
Regarding return on tangible equity, we expect 7.5% already for 2023, reaching our target one year earlier than originally planned. Our cost-income ratio this year is expected at 61%, very close to our target of 60% for 2024. This is, among others, thanks to the successful gross FTE reduction. By the end of this year, we will have achieved 97% of the planned reduction. Regarding CET1 ratio, we forecast 14.7% at the end of this year, already reflecting our intended payout ratio of 50% for 2023. The 14.7% should also mark a peak level in our CET1 ratio as we increase capital return to shareholders going forward. This leads me to our key priorities for the upcoming years towards 2027.
Our business model is very much on excellent products and services that drive revenues in our client segments. Key enablers for such growth are the digital and sustainable transformation. We will further invest into digital products and services, and we will develop value-adding client strategy towards net zero. Thanks to the strong client business and revenues, together with ongoing high-cost discipline, we will earn our cost of capital and significantly increase payouts to shareholders. This is reflected in our set of targets for 2027. We target a net return on tangible equity of 11.5%. We will steer the business towards a cost income ratio of 55%. Both figures come with a net income target of EUR 3.4 billion and a CET1 ratio of 13.5%.
This clear path towards earning cost of capital comes with a significant increase in capital returns by means of dividends and share buybacks. They are, of course, subject to approval by ECB and the German Finance Agency. The set of targets is a result of a thorough planning process and the joint commitments of the whole board of managing directors. Our common goal is to steadily deliver on our path to 2027 and further increase the activity of Commerzbank for investors. Our robust commercial business model, with significantly increasing results and payouts, demonstrates our value potential. In order to lift the value of Commerzbank, we have committed ourselves to clear strategic guidelines moving forward. Firstly, it's about growing our business and revenues in both segments, PSBC and corporate clients. Also, striving for the best solution for our clients is mandatory.
This will lead to increasing customer satisfaction in all channels: online, mobile, phone, and in our branches. And with the unconditional client focus and strategic, distinct set of strategic business initiatives, we will strengthen our fee income and revenues. Secondly, it's about excellence in products, services, and processes. The bank is still too complex in its operations. We need to tackle this, especially by investments into digitalization. This will lead to increasing efficiency within the organization. High efficiency and increasing revenues will improve our cost-income ratio. Our steering approach, however, is strict. If planned revenues fall short, we will tackle the cost base again to reach our target of 55% for cost-income ratio. Our ultimate target, of course, is to earn more than 11% return on tangible equity and meet cost of capital. Thirdly, it is about responsibility.
Sustainability is an integral part of our business model and our strategy, but responsibility goes beyond sustainability. One of our most important responsibility is to our employees. The transformation of the bank has left its mark. Many valued colleagues have left the bank, and the mood was clouded, and in some cases still is. We have to increase employee satisfaction and employer activity. I'm convinced that the positive business outlook for Commerzbank will support this, and it's my strong belief that only a highly motivated team that shares a common set of goals will ultimately make a difference, no matter which culture, gender, or age bracket our team members belong to. Now let's have a closer look to the plans in our client segments. PSBC Germany serves around 11 million customers out of Commerzbank and comdirect. They are split into four customer groups with different needs and business potential.
Private customers largely reflect retail banking, with a strong focus on convenient daily banking and account services... Scale and the usage of digital and remote services is one of the most important business levers in this customer group. comdirect is our digital and direct bank for self-directed customers. With its excellent product, brokerage product portfolio for beginners, as well as professionals, comdirect has become a leading digital and direct bank in Germany. Small business customers demand a seamless combination of banking for their private and professional needs. Wealth management and private banking customers with assets under management of at least EUR 100,000 request individual lending and investment solutions. Here, we see significant growth potential for Commerzbank. We tackle this customer group with our highly qualified experts and relationship managers in the branches.
The holistic approach of these customer groups will remain unchanged and forms the basis for our strategic focus going forward. At the end of the day, it comes back to scale, digital convenience, and efficiency in retail banking, while growth is the name of the game in private banking and wealth management. This is reflected in the three main strategic fields of action for PSBC in Germany. First, provide excellent daily banking experience and offer state-of-the-art payment solutions. Second, extend the positioning of comdirect as primary digital bank and leading performance broker. And third, increase share of wallet in wealth management and private banking by strengthening asset management, digital, and bespoke solutions. With the business initiatives in these focus areas, we target an annual growth rate of 4% in fee income for PSBC in Germany.
With ongoing efficiency gains and rising revenues, we aim for a cost-income ratio of 56%, a significant improvement from today. Now, let's have a more detailed look into the focus areas and the respective initiatives. In daily banking, we will develop new account and card offerings, which come with an updated pricing model. We strictly focus on products with value added that generate additional fees. Regarding payments, we will offer innovative point-of-sale solutions for small business customers and extend our value chain in the payment ecosystem. The steady enhancement of our mobile banking offering is an ongoing effort to meet the increasing expectations of our customers. Excellent digital user experience is also at the forefront of comdirect's strategy. Thus, we will further strengthen our positioning as primary digital bank for self-directed customers. Furthermore, we will expand the product range of comdirect.
This includes, but is not limited to, upgrades of our successful ProTrader platform. This will also support our continuous efforts to expand our position as leading online broker. The largest contribution of additional revenues in the segment stems from capitalized asset management and bespoke solutions for wealthy clients. We will bundle all asset management activities in one center of competence and aim to significantly grow assets. This includes exploiting the partially untapped potential for private financial matters of our corporate and business clients. Another important lever for this growth are additional product offerings, such as Yellowfin. We are also looking at targeted partnership opportunities and selective bolt-on acquisitions in the field of asset management. Growth from the holistic advisory approach and digital reporting will complement our initiatives.
With this set of initiatives, we are very confident to deliver on the targeted annual growth of 4% in fee income in PSBC Germany. In our corporate clients division, we serve clients in three different pillars. German corporate clients, with our leading franchise in the German Mittelstand, form the first and the largest pillar. International clients, with connectivity to Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and our business with institutionals, represents the second and the third pillar. All three pillars benefit from our strong client orientation. Our deep roots in the German Mittelstand and our leading position in trade finance form a rock-solid basis for the development of the business. The strong client relationships are the key asset in the division and the result of a consistently high client focus. Client needs determine our strategy. Excellence in cash management and trade finance is a must.
Reliability as a banking partner of choice in good times and in bad times is a real differentiator for Commerzbank. Increasing demand for digital and sustainability solutions requires investments and expertise at the same time. Hence, the strategic focus is straightforward. First, strengthen the cash and trade product offer by upgrading of our IT applications. Second, grow lending business with focus on Germany and green infrastructure. Third, capital markets growth in strategic products with focus on advisory excellence and digitalization of trading activities. Based on these focus areas, we target an annual growth rate in fee income of 3% and a stable cost income ratio of 48%. Coming from an exceptionally strong year, 2023, we thereby fully compensate the expected decline in NII from deposits. Let me shed some more light on the strategic initiatives in corporate clients.
In cash management, we will significantly invest into digitalization and our IT applications. With upgraded and new systems, we safeguard our leading market position. We are, for instance, talking about new SWIFT services, digital end-to-end processes, and automated fraud prevention. In trade finance, we are in the leading position for German exports, with a 30% market share in Letters of Credit. Besides investments into our back-end systems, we will further strengthen our top position in trade finance by enhanced client solutions. This includes digital front ends, as well as a further rollout of already proven DLT solutions. In lending, we see significant growth opportunities. We aim to become lead arranger in large-ticket ECA transactions. In domestic lending, it is our target to grow in structured and standard products. This includes working capital financing, bilateral and syndicated loans, as well as green project financing.
By strengthening our renewable energy teams and processes, we will benefit from the increasing loan demand in this field. The growth of investments into renewable energy is expected to be 3x higher than in the last five years. Of course, capital efficiency in the loan book remains a top priority, also under the Basel IV regime, and will be supported by securitizations. Regarding capital market products, we will further increase our successful FX business and optimize pricing. The FX platform will also be leveraged for other asset classes, such as rates and commodities. It will serve as a one-stop shop and provides us with additional flow business. In the bonds business, we actively tackle market opportunities, for example, Swiss franc issuance and ESG advisory. This leads me to our plan for sustainability. We have achieved a lot in the last three years.
Let me highlight the probably most important topic: net zero. Our target to become net zero by 2050 has been drilled down to the different industries in our portfolio by applying the SBTi methodology. We have established a robust framework to steer the green transformation that has received the approval from SBTi. This is what drives our ESG strategy and sets the green agenda for our client business. With the continuous enhancement of our green product portfolio and strong advisory skills, we work with our clients to support their green transformation. Every client that commits to adequate carbon emission reductions can count on Commerzbank as their reliable banking partner on this challenging journey. We will monitor the progress on a regular basis and set up the respective reporting structure internally and externally. And now, Bettina will walk you through the financials. Over to you, Bettina.
Thank you, Manfred, and good morning. I will now provide you with the financial plan of our strategy. Let's start with our key assumptions, which I want to make fully transparent, as they are an important basis for our financial planning. The economic scenario is based on independent data from Consensus Economics as of September 2023. For euro interest rates, we assume that they will be initially stable at current levels and then decline towards 2027, reaching a level just above 3%. For the German economy, we expect slow growth, moderate inflation, and a low unemployment rate. Regarding securities, we plan with increasing stock markets, which supports our securities business in PSBC. We have incorporated already announced regulatory burdens like the go live of Basel in 2025. We have, however, not assumed any significant additional burdens from geopolitical events, and no change in the minimum reserve policy.
We further expect that the burdens from mBank Swiss franc mortgages will be resolved before 2027, with remaining burdens mostly occurring in 2024. Given this macroeconomic scenario, and based on our business initiatives, we aim to increase our net result to around EUR 3.4 billion in 2027. This is a strong increase of more than 50% compared to the expected result of this year. We will improve the cost-income ratio to 55% and increase the net RoTE to 11.5%.... Bringing the net RoTE well above 10% has been our top priority for the strategy, as this is the foundation for long-term profitability and shareholder return. The biggest driver of increasing profitability in our strategy are revenue growth initiatives, mainly in the fee-generating business.
Loan growth and improving returns from the model deposits will offset the drag from lower rates and higher deposit betas. In connection with lower rates, we should see improvements in the fair value result that is currently offsetting some of the gains in interest income from higher rates. Overall, we plan with 2% underlying revenue growth, reaching around EUR 12.5 billion in 2027. On the next slides, I will give you more details on the revenue drivers, starting with net interest income. For 2023, we expect NII of more than EUR 8.1 billion, 25% higher than in 2022. This is a very healthy level, reflecting a more normal interest rate environment after years of negative rates. We assume that the increase in pass-through rates will be mostly completed by the end of 2024.
We project another strong increase from an average beta of 25% in 2023 to 37% in 2024. For the following years, we forecast only smaller increases from this already high level, reaching 43% in 2027. Despite the higher betas, deposits will remain the main source of NII growth in the next years, adding around EUR 600 million until 2027. In the Private and Small-Business Customers segment, we have seen deposit growth in the last quarters. We expect this to continue based on the high savings rate in Germany and the effects of inflation that tend to increase deposit volumes over time. For corporate clients, we assume flat deposit volumes. The picture is different in the loan business. Lending will contribute EUR 100 million to interest income on a net basis.
While we expect growth in corporate clients based on increased investment needs, we see lower demand for mortgages in PSBC. PSBC will significantly increase NII by EUR 800 million. The benefit of volume growth and the reinvestment of modeled deposits at higher rates will be much stronger than the drag from a higher deposit beta and lower mortgage demand. In contrast, NII will be EUR 100 million lower in corporate clients, as loan growth cannot fully compensate the higher beta. As most of the deposits are not modeled, we have largely seen the revenue growth from higher rates already this year. Also, others and consolidations benefited a lot this year. Due to rising rates, we had seen higher NII that was offset in the fair value result.
As rates come down, this will reverse, with NII expected to decrease by EUR 200 million, again, largely offset in the fair value result. mBank will exhibit a similar effect to others and consolidation. As rates decrease, NII drops. However, the fair value result should more than offset the drop, leading to a net increase in the revenues. On the next slides are the details how the NII from deposits develops over time. This transparency is intended to give you a very clear understanding of our plan, assumptions, and the underlying mechanics. On slide 20, we have detailed the change in the net interest income from deposits. The reference point is the 2023 NII. Starting from this basis in the table, we have the change year- after- year. In 2024, deposits are expected to contribute EUR 300 million less to NII.
The expected strong increase in the average deposit beta from 25% in 2023 to 37% in 2024 cannot be fully offset by reinvestments of modeled deposits, higher average rates, and volume growth. In 2025, we will again reach the level of 2023, as a reinvestment of modeled deposits further improve further the NII. This continues until 2027. Looking at the individual drivers, the modeled deposits contribute positively every year. This will continue beyond 2027 as longer-term investments mature and are reinvested at higher rates. In 2024-2026, the reinvestment of the modeled deposits will contribute around EUR 500 million each year. In 2027, this is expected to decrease to around EUR 300 million, as rates are lower, affecting deposits reinvested at shorter tenors. The interest expense paid to customers reflect the better development.
The 12 percentage point higher beta in 2024 is a main driver of the EUR 1.6 billion increase in the cost of deposits. In subsequent years, the beta causes a much smaller drag. In 2027, interest expense paid to customers is declining, as rates are forecast to fall, more than compensating the projected small increase in the beta. The change in short-term rates not only affects the interest paid to customers, but also the interest earned on deposits invested short term. This will bring an additional EUR 900 million in 2024, as rates are significantly higher than in 2023. In the following year, this is slowly reversing as rates are forecasted to decline over time.
Taking all effects together, NII in 2024 is expected to be around EUR 7.6 billion, EUR 500 million lower than in 2023, with minus EUR 300 million from deposits and minus EUR 200 million from mBank. After the dip in 2024, we see growing NII in the coming years, with the income from deposits again reaching the 2023 level already in 2025. In addition to our base case, we have prepared two scenarios, which you see on the bottom of slide 20. We have based our plan on consensus data from September. More recent forward rates indicate lower short-term rates, but higher long-term rates. We have therefore assimilated the effect of the forward rates on deposits. There's no material impact in 2024, but in subsequent years, this would lead to lower NII.
In 2027, NII from deposits would be EUR 200 million lower in this scenario. In a second scenario, we have not only used the forward rates, but also assumed that the deposit beta does not follow our prudent trajectory of increasing by 12 percentage points in 2024. Instead, we have simulated an increase by 7 percentage points in 2024, and then unchanged increases in the following years. In this case, NII would be higher by EUR 500 million in 2024, which means we would maintain the 2023 level of minimum EUR 8.1 billion. In 2027, NII would be EUR 200 million higher compared to our base scenario. Overall, deposits have driven revenues in the last years. With the ongoing benefits from model deposits, they will continue to do so in the coming years.
On the next slide, I will cover the contribution from the fee business. All business areas have defined strategic initiatives to grow commission income. Manfred has introduced them already. We expect a balanced contribution from all business areas of around EUR 200 million each, resulting in an annual growth of 4%. Based on our plan, the increase should come steadily, year after year, as the initiatives bear fruit. The targets are ambitious, but we have clearly defined initiatives that build on our strong franchise. We are therefore confident to reach them. This concludes the revenue outlook, and I will now focus on the cost base on the next slides. We steer the cost base to meet our cost-income ratio target. We aim for a cost-income ratio target of 55% in 2027.
Based on our revenue projection, this allows for a cost base of EUR 6.8 billion. For the group excluding mBank, costs will come down in 2024 due to lower compulsory contributions and cost reductions still from Strategy 2024. They will be only partly offset by wage increases and investments. In the following years, we expect slight increases in costs, mainly due to investments. By 2027, we should be then back at the 2023 level. To ensure this, we have to find cost measures that can compensate annual inflation of 2%-2.5%. The aim is to increase the efficiency of our operations while investing in client solutions and growth. The measures can be grouped in two categories: complexity reduction and IT modernization in combination with the decommissioning of legacy systems.
mBank is also steered with a cost-income ratio target, but we have a stronger dynamic, with rising compulsory contributions, higher inflation, and targeted staff increases. Therefore, costs are going up each year. At the same time, we also see a nice revenue dynamic and already have an excellent cost-income ratio at mBank when excluding the burdens from Swiss franc mortgages. The plan is to maintain the cost-income ratio at a healthy level. On the next slide, I will cover the IT investment plans in more detail. It is obvious that we have an ongoing need to invest in our business model. We therefore plan for an efficient, continuous IT investment volume of around EUR 530 million each year. More than half will be dedicated to the customer business supporting revenues. The projects are fully aligned with the business initiatives Manfred has outlined.
The remainder is roughly equally split between investments in infrastructure and necessary spending to fulfill regulatory requirements. Moving to capital resources, we expect average annual RWA growth of 3% over the next year. There are three main drivers. Firstly, lending growth, mainly in corporate clients and at mBank, will add around EUR 15 billion RWA. As already in the last years, corporate clients will partially offset their RWA increase with capital accretive securitizations. Secondly, regulatory effects, mainly the switch to Basel and the go live of FRTB in 2025. The implementation of Basel will increase credit RWA by around EUR 6 billion. This will be offset by around EUR 4 billion from mitigating effects. FRTB will have a net effect of around EUR 3 billion RWA in market risk. And thirdly, increased profitability, which leads to EUR 5 billion higher operational risk RWA in the standardized approach.
There will also be some reallocation of RWA from others and consolidation, mainly to corporate clients. In others and consolidation, we have temporarily booked RWA that anticipate the impact of changes in our risk models that are currently being implemented, the so-called future of IRB exercise. Once the changes go live, the RWA are calculated for the actual risk positions and thereby reallocated to the segments. To finish the drivers of the operating performance, let's move to the risk result. For 2023, we anticipate a risk result of less than EUR 700 million or 25 basis points cost of risks. Based on the short-term economic outlook, we expect a somewhat higher risk result of around EUR 800 million in 2024. This includes the usage of the top-level adjustment, which we currently assume will be carried over to next year.
In line with our more positive economic outlook for subsequent years, we assume a normalized risk result. This is based on a very healthy structure of our loan book, which is well diversified, and we intend to maintain our risk appetite. In the next two slides, I will give you the financials of private and small customers—small business customers in Germany and corporate clients. In 2023, PSBC should reach a return on CET1 capital of nearly 25% on expected revenues of around EUR 4.2 billion. This is a bit lower than in 2022, which had large one-off benefits from mortgage prepayments, boosting revenues. In the next years, based on the growth initiatives and the optimization of the existing business, PSBC Germany plans to grow revenues by 6% annually. Growth will come from better interest income and commission income.
Interest income will be supported by the continuous reinvestment of model deposits at higher rates and targeted growth in deposit volumes. Loan volumes are expected to decline due to lower demand for mortgages at higher rates. Around two-thirds of revenue growth is expected from NII. In fee income, the main revenue driver is the securities business, where we target to attract around EUR 50 billion net new assets under management. The growth is driven by our strategic initiatives. As we plan to keep the cost base roughly on the level of 2023, the cost income ratio should improve to around 56% in 2027. Risk-weighted assets are expected to grow only by around 10%, as our revenue initiatives are focused on fee income. We therefore expect a significant improvement of the return on CET1 to more than 50%.
In contrast to PSBC Germany, corporate clients is not benefiting from large rollovers of model deposits. We also do not expect net deposit volume growth. We therefore face lower contributions from the deposit business in 2027. While loan growth is currently low, corporate clients have significant lending opportunities with Mittelstand customers and in ESG-related financing. This should allow corporate clients to grow loan volumes by around 3.5% annually until 2027, offsetting the drag from deposits. With a roughly EUR 200 million higher NCI and a EUR 100 million lower NII, the increase in total revenues is around 0.4% annually. Given largely unchanged costs, this leads to a stable cost-income ratio of 48%. With loan growth and regulatory RWA inflation, including the reallocation from others in consolidation, we expect average annual RWA growth of 4%.
When excluding the regulatory-driven increase in RWA, they grow only by 1% after securitization. The lower return of 17% must be seen in the same light. Excluding regulatory RWA inflation, the return is nearly stable. Taking a longer-term perspective, the development of corporate clients is very positive. Using 2022 as a starting point, revenues grow by 3.9% annually because the income ratio and the return also improve markedly. However, 2023 was such an exceptional year for corporate clients, with an outsized jump in profitability from the deposit business. This level of profitability needs to be consolidated in the next years by replacing the gradually lower contribution from deposits with new business. This brings me to the yearly development of our key ratios on slide 28.
Based on the initiatives outlined, we aim for a steady improvement of our operational level, leverage, bringing down the cost-income ratio year after year to reach a healthy level of around 55%. Correspondingly, we target a steady increase of the net RoTE, reaching around 11.5% in 2027. Throughout the period, we aim for a healthy capital return to shareholders. Starting with a CET1 ratio of around 14.7%, we plan to gradually reach our target level of 13.5% by 2027, the latest. We have already published our capital return plan in late September. To recap, we plan to return EUR 3 billion to shareholders for the period 2022-2024, assuming that we'll reach our 2024 net income target. This implies a payout ratio above 70% for 2024.
In subsequent years, we will continue to pay out well above 50%, but no more than the full net result after 81 coupon payments of each financial year. To reach the target return for each year, we plan for a payout that consists of a steady dividend and, subject to approval by the ECB and the German Finance Agency, a share buyback. Let me finish with five key financial highlights of our strategy. We will steadily increase our net RoTE, reaching around 9.5% in 2025 and 11.5% in 2027... Our interest income benefits from supporting tailwind from model deposits, and there is a further upside from potentially lower beta. We will grow our fee income by 4% annually based on well-defined initiatives.
We will steadily improve our cost-income ratio to 55%, and RWA, including the Basel impact, will grow only moderately by 3% on an annualized basis. Thank you very much for your attention, and Manfred will now conclude the presentation.
Thank you, Bettina. As Bettina has laid out, this is an ambitious but very realistic plan. Already in the last three years, we have proven our commitment to the strict execution of our plans, and we will build on this going forward when it comes to financial steering of the bank. But we will add two very important dimensions: customer and employee satisfaction are key drivers for future success. Both will be part of management targets and closely monitored. With our proven transformation management system, we will make our strategy moving forward a success. Let me conclude with the five key messages of our plan for 2027. First, we are running a commercial bank with a customer-focused business model and a clean balance sheet. Second, we will earn more than 11% return on tangible equity and meet cost of capital.
Third, we have a clear set of strategic initiatives to increase capital-light fee income. Fourth, efficiency and cost discipline remain high priorities to reach our targeted cost-income ratio of 55%. Fifth, we target a prudent CET1 ratio of 13.5% by returning capital to shareholders. Now, Bettina and I are happy to take your questions.
Thank you, Manfred and Bettina. Now we are moving on with the Q&A. Let me briefly explain the process we would like to follow. We will take questions from analysts and institutional investors one by one. Journalists will have the opportunity to ask questions in the separate press conference that starts at 2:00 P.M. CET. Participants following via MS Teams will be muted throughout the whole Q&A session. For asking a question, please use the hand signal within MS Teams, and I will call you up. We kindly ask you to not use the MS Teams chat for questions. When you are called up for a question, please unmute yourself. After your question has been answered, our team will mute you again. For incoming questions via the webcast, please state your full name and your institution. Now let's get started.
So I have the first question that will come from Vishal Shah from Morgan Stanley. Hi, Vishal. Floor is yours.
Hi, Christoph. Thank you so much for taking my question, and thank you, Manfred and Bettina, for the presentation. This is Vishal Shah from Morgan Stanley. I have a few questions. The first one is on your interest rate assumptions driving the NII forecasts. So clearly, when I look at the forward curves that you're using, you have 4% average rate in 2024 and 2025, 3.8% in 2026, and 3.3% in 2027. This is clearly very high compared to the market, you know, sort of forwards, which have about 3.5% in 2024 and 2.8% in 2025. So first question is, why are you using much higher rates than what the market is pricing right now?
Then secondly, if you were to sort of use the market price rates or the EURIBOR forwards, how would that impact your NII in 2024, 2025, and then out till 2027? So that's my other question. And then last one is on your RoTE targets. When I look at your slide 28, which sort of gives us a path for RoTE out till 2027, I see there is quite a lot of a bit of flat lining in 2024, where the RoTE is targeted at 8%.
If I look at consensus numbers, I understand that your NII guidance is a bit lower than consensus, but what are the other factors that is driving this 8% return on tangible, which looks quite conservative versus the consensus right now? Thank you so much.
... Okay, thank you, Vishal. So let's do that step by step. So the interest rates assumption, why did we use them? Because we need to use at a certain point in time, we do our planning, and we need to do. We have to base that on something. And we tend to use Consensus Economics as a basis, but we are also very well aware that forward rates and the consensus fall apart. And therefore we decided to also do, and you find that on page 20, we did a scenario. So you see on the scenario exactly the actual forward rates of, it's now probably a week ago or two weeks ago, and we filled that into our model.
There you see that in 2024, it doesn't have really an impact, and it means that in 2027, our NII would be EUR 200 million lower, which would mean that also our overall revenue base would be EUR 200 million lower. The effect on the RoTE is very limited. It's around 0.1%, so we would have an RoTE of 11.4%, approximately. That's number one. However, what we also have done, and that's the important second line of the scenarios, is that we not only took the actual forward rates, but we also assumed that the deposit beta would be not as high as we have assumed that, because I would say this is a conservative assumption.
We said, "Let's assume for a moment it's just 5 percentage points lower." And if you do that one, that has a huge impact because it would mean that in 2024, the NII would be basically flat, which would be also quite a beat on current analyst forecast, because we would stick to 8.1 instead of falling down to 7.6. That is number one, and yet then you can imagine everything in between. And also the impact on the RoTE, because you also had that as a question, would be huge, because then our RoTE would be rather above 9%. So that, that assumption moves a lot of things around.
I think the most important assumption is the one on deposit beta, because you see that there is an impact on forward rates, but not as much as you might imagine. And that's basically also what then drives 2024. I think the key difference in 2024 forecast to analysts and our guidance is basically the fair value. Because we try to explain that all the time, that we have offsetting effects in fair value, so we assume fair value somehow a little bit lower than in current analyst consensus.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Kian Abouhossein from JP Morgan, also via Teams. Hi, Kian. Please go ahead with your question.
Thank you for taking my questions. I have a few nitty-gritty ones regarding input. Coming back to page 16, you discuss the stock market growth. I think you assume the DAX is growing by something like 8% per annum. What would be your commission assumption if that would not be the case? So maybe sensitivity would be quite helpful, so we can make our own assumption if necessary. On PSBC, on page 26, you're assuming deposit growth of around 3% and loans declining 3% per annum. Maybe you can discuss that a little bit. And in CC, you're assuming loans to go up by 3.5% per annum. And again, if you could just discuss your dynamic of why that would be the case.
Lastly, if I can throw one very quick one in. The message was very clear at the beginning that if revenues are not as cheap, you will offset that with cost. And I was just wondering, up to what level do you really have cost flexibility, as you have done already very well on the cost management? And I should have maybe also added at the beginning, thank you very much for the detailed presentation, especially page 20. This is exactly what other banks should look at. It's excellent. Thank you.
Thank you, Kian. I told you this morning that you would love this page, so I'm, it's nice to be proven right. So on the DAX sensitivity, I think we say something you have to imagine then 1,000 points of DAX difference. I think it's a lower double-digit million EUR impact. So something about EUR 25 million-EUR 30 million, I think is a good guess for that, up or down. And on deposit growth, what we assume here, I said that it's very much linked to the saving behavior, which we know from Germans, in combination with the inflation, which we assume.
We are not very positive in the moment, that might change. It also depends a little bit on the interest rate level that we will really see, again, levels of mortgage volumes which we have seen in previous years. That's however very dependent also on the interest rate level. For example, in our little scenario, where we assumed that interest rates would come down faster than we currently plan, we have not included any upside yet on the mortgage business. Which would most likely be there, because then probably also clients would react to it. But that one is still out of our numbers and would add some benefits also in the years 25 and the following. On corporate clients, it's different.
We really believe that there is a lot of potential. We know that, specifically the Mittelstand didn't really invest a lot, because of the pandemic first, then the war, all the geopolitical risks which you currently see. And, and we expect them to change that. And, if you also follow up on on public debate, there's a lot to be done also by the government to to increase the attractivity of the German market and, and really, incentivize our Mittelstand to invest, because they need to invest a lot in their transformation and also in their green transformation. And that's where we think we can be, at their side, and that's embedded, in the numbers.
Plus, green transformation is also for larger clients a very important topic, and I think we are well equipped for that. On cost flexibility, I forgot that one. You ask what kind of cost flexibility we have. I mean, what we now do is really we do a continuous improvement program. So we will basically review month by month, quarter- by- quarter, cost situation. We'll see where we can save money to reinvest it also in growth or also to meet regulatory requirements, extra requirements, and things like that. But it also gives you the flexibility on a certain point when you see we are getting into difficulties to probably also slow down some activities. That's...
And besides that, we have all flexibility on the non-personal cost side to also react faster if necessary.
Thank you, Bettina. The next one question is one we take from the chat, and this has been put by Bert Bringmann from Gies & Heimburger Vermögensverwalter. The question goes to Manfred, and it is: Is there any further reduction of branches still planned?
No, we feel... Thank you very much for the question. We feel 400 branches for Germany is a good setup, and we feel very happy with that, and we see this as something we're very comfortable. So that is a good number we plan for the future with.
Thanks. The next one, now again from the team session, comes from Tobias Lukesch from Kepler Cheuvreux. Tobias, go ahead with your question, please.
Yeah. Thank you very much for the presentation and for my questions. And Bettina, I continue where we ended this morning on the volume question. I mean, looking at that great table on page 20, and also looking at the table on page 19, lending plus EUR 100 million, if I read that, which I would interpret to be volume driven, basically. I was wondering, given the RWA increase that you do see, isn't there a chance that we do see stronger NII support from volumes? I would interpret that we have a kind of EUR 5 billion RWA after securitization increase, and if I do calculate that back of the envelope, I would come to a bit of a higher NII impact from the volume side.
And the second question would be on expectations regarding mBank. You just said that it's potentially still a kind of provisioning year next year in 2024. So could you share your assumptions around pre-tax or net profit from the mBank side with regards to 2024, 2025? That would very much clear the picture, basically, for your own planning. And very lastly, maybe on the payout, you guide for that 70% payout for next year. So I was wondering, you know, it's like, is there a chance that we stay basically flat on the 70% if the whole NII situation plays out better? So if we do see some of the upside you're indicating, basically.
Plainly, is there a chance that you then keep up the very high payout ratio and therefore we see more of capital distribution? Thank you.
Thank you, Tobias. On the volume question, I mean, we have been again rather cautious on the margin side, and that is probably the key, key driver of it. I think it's also an aggressive volume growth where we are confident that we will manage that. But we just stay rather yeah prudent on that and do not assume any real margin improvements. So I think we are good with the impact, but it's very much dependent on the margin development. Expectations on mBank, I mean, we now believe that we will end up with a burden in this year of approximately EUR 1 billion. And if you look in our charts, we assume that this will, this will go out.
So we took a basis for 2023 without the burden. But we still assume that you could see something, what we have now seen at a quarter, that you would see something in the full year, comparable, what you now have seen in a quarter. So around EUR 200 million we have included in it. Whether it's more or less, we will see, dependent really much on where the settlement ends. On number one, what the new government is planning to do, things like that. And I mean, you can see how, what the overall performance of mBank is.
If you just exclude the provisioning, and you just take the core bank, as they name it, they will be able to basically generate an operating result of more than EUR 1 billion. And that gives you... If you assume that there will be a gradual also improvement of their operating income, gives you, I think, a nice flavor on where they will end in 2025 and 2026. All dependent clearly on the Swiss franc situation. And also, I mean, we know that there is a lot of debate around credit holidays, which we can't really judge, but we stay cautious on that one.
Payouts.
Then, the payouts, I mean, we plan now for more than 70%, for 2024, because that brings us, assuming that we achieve our net income target for 2024. It assumes that it adds up to the EUR 3 billion, which we promised. And besides that, I mean, if you do the math and you think through that, we really target the 13.5%, reaching in 2027. You know that there has been that there must be a significant capital return over time, and that will be a good mix out of dividends and share buybacks. So yes, you could imagine that also in the years after 2024, there is a payout higher than the 70%.
Thank you, Bettina, for this clarification.
Thank you very much.
... on payouts also. And now the next question from the team session comes from Máté Nemes, from UBS. Máté, go ahead with your question, please.
Thank you, and thank you for your presentation as well, including the details on NII. I have the three questions, please. The first one would be on the net fair value result. Bettina, you alluded in the morning that you would expect some offset to NII in 2024, materializing in net fair value, and some of which, over time, could obviously reverse. I was wondering if you could give us a bit more details on net fair value result in 2024, 2025, and then subsequent years, so that could help perhaps modeling. The second question would be on the risk results. You're guiding for EUR 800 million, including TLA usage.
Could you share your assumptions in terms of what level of TLA usage do you have in mind here? The last question would be on mBank. I noticed the cost growth at mBank going from EUR 1.8 billion to EUR 1.2 billion, so a good 50% growth. Could you share some details on what exactly drives this? I'm aware of higher inflation, but that's quite a jump. If you could share anything on that, would be helpful.
Sure, Máté. Thank you. So on the net fair value result, so how does this evolve over time? So the driver is really the interest rate level. As the rates go down in the next years, this will gradually reduced. And for 2027, we expect a level of around EUR 150 million per quarter. And this is the main driver for the EUR 200 million higher fair value result that we have in our plan for 2027 compared to 2023. But please keep in mind there are also some offsetting fair value effects all over the place, because in some we expect plus 0.2 fair value. And the positive and a net fair value is mainly the contribution of our capital markets businesses.
You know that, for Commerzbank and mBank, we offer derivative solutions to our customers, help them with bond issuance and things like that, and these profit is all reported in net fair value. That also now largely offsets, luckily, the negative fair value from others in consolidation. That's perhaps an explanation on that. The risk result, EUR 800 million, I mean, we had the top-level adjustment already for this year. Now it seems to be that we do not use it, so we are open to use it fully if necessary, if economic situation is worsening. In the moment, it doesn't feel like that.
We have an economics forecast from our own department, which is more negative than the other ones, because ours are currently expecting a -0.3% for Germany, while the rest is still thinking about a small growth or at least stagnation. It depends all on that, but I think the message we can give is, with our plans, with our numbers, we have a lot of buffer for whatever might come. Because if you add EUR 800 + EUR 435, that's quite a good number. And the cost growth at mBank, yes, it's high, but they also show a decent revenue growth, so they are still at a very comfortable, very healthy cost-income ratio.
The main drivers is still compulsory contributions at a good part of it. Inflation, I mean, you know that inflation in Poland is still very, very high, and we really see that partly in double-digit growth of salary levels there. And then also, they want to invest, also invest in people because they also want to grow in certain areas and the sum brings it to the numbers you see.
Thank you.
... Thank you for that. And the next question over Teams comes from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca. Hi, Riccardo, floor is yours.
Thanks. Thanks, Christoph. I hope you can, you can hear me well. I have three questions, if I may. The first one is on, is on the deposit betas. Okay, you got rates going, staying at around 4% and then falling to 3.3, right or wrong? But then when I look at betas in Germany, you have 30s – you start from 25 in Q3. This is assumed to go to 37, then 39, then 42, then 43, okay? So despite rates going up, this keeps going up and up and up. Going down, rates. Now, we have spent most of the 2023 trying to, basically discussing about beta. Beta never went up, not as you were expecting.
Now in this base case scenario, which underpins the 8% RoTE in 2024, you know, you are basically telling us that you will not be able to cut the cost of the deposits, while the reality in what we've seen in 2023 is that the cost of the deposits lagged your initial assumptions. Let's put it this way. So I was wondering, what... why, why in this baseline scenario, you are plugging something that is not happening in the real world? That's not been happening for the whole 2023. This is my first question. The second question I have is, if you can remind us what should be the impact of Basel IV on risk assets at the beginning of the phasing period, so let's say start at 2025 or end 2025.
And then I was more of a kind of a philosophical one: If all this plan, one way or the other, includes the digital euro, the ECB has decided to go on with the project, is there any role in that? What you think about that? Maybe this is a question for Manfred, maybe. Thanks.
Let me start, Riccardo, with the digital euro. They're saying that the digital euro will not come now five years ahead of us, so it's definitely beyond our time planning here. Okay, we are watching it, but we are not expecting an implementation, and therefore, any impacts in our period.
Yeah. So deposit beta, yeah. I mean, what we have seen is now percentage-wise, 5 percentage points increase, and it's still happening. And I mean, the whole development of deposit beta depends on customer behavior, competitor behavior, and we have seen some movements. But I have to say, we have been pretty also successful in managing that, having attractive offerings out there, which you also can see in the inflow of our deposits. I mean, we are in a similar situation as everybody else. We can only rely also on historic data, and historic data suggests the levels which we also assume for 2027, for example. We have seen that in the past at similar levels.
And you should also not forget, even in a decreasing interest rate environment, also dependent on how much is in call and term money and what durations you have as promises for the interest rate levels. You will also have an effect that interest rate might come down, but you still have offerings out there for clients, which still last for, I don't know, six-12 months. So that's one. But because we know that we have been also not so right, to say it like that in this year and too conservative, we... I mean, there was a clear message in this lower scenario, which shows you the upside. And the impact on the RoTE is very large, as I said.
I mean, take the lower, lower end, we will even end 2027 with higher, with higher revenues and a better case than we have predicted in our base plan. But specifically for 2024, this assumption is very important, because take the the 5 percentage points less, and you are at an RoTE of 9% and at a similar level of the NII. So it's really something around that. But I think for our planning, we need to be prudent. But because you should also not forget that we still also the bank was a cost-income ratio, and we also need to make sure that we keep the cost discipline and that we keep the cost-income ratio intact.
So it's a mixture of different things, but there is a reason why we have the scenario on page, on famous page 20, at the bottom. And the impact of Basel, you find that in the RWA, page, nicely. I'm just looking which page number it is. It is page number 24, and there you see the Basel impact. So we think that from credit RWA, it will be an impact of EUR 6 billion, and that will be, however, mitigated because we now look on portfolio reshuffling and stuff like that, by minus EUR 4 billion. So the net impact will be really limited, and this is also what we said all the time.
That's for 2025.
Thanks. Thanks a lot, Bettina.
That's for 2025, yes.
If I may just a quick follow-up. If I understand well your wording, when I look at the 37 in 2024, 39 in 2025, 42 in 2026, and so on, do I get it right that in these numbers, it is embedded some level of conservatism or prudence?
... Yeah.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you, Riccardo, also for this clarification of prudence. Well received. Now we move on with the next question from teams, and that is, comes from Amit Goel from Barclays. Amit, hi, and please put your question.
Great, thank you. So two kind of detailed questions and one kind of broader question. Two detailed questions. Firstly, again, apologies, but coming back to slide 20, I just wanted to check: So if we took a scenario where you just use the forward rates but don't change anything else, so for the top table, the -0.3, the 0.3, 0.2, 0.3, 0.6, what would those numbers be? And then just, as an aside to that, would the view be that if rates were lower that deposit betas would naturally be lower, or it's hard to say? Second question is on the O&C contribution. So I see that EUR 200 million reduction assumed.
The level in 2023 seemed to be quite elevated versus the past. So just kind of curious how you think about that. So that is a more sustainable contribution and/or how is that impacted by changes in rates? And my third question, just a little bit broader. I mean, I see obviously PSBC, Germany, you know, ultimately the group sees about a 51% return on CET1 capital. You know, is that really achievable or feasible? Would it not get competed away or see higher costs? And/or if it is that kind of level versus the group doing an 11% RoTE, you know, is there not more you can do in terms of allocating capital to that business, and de-emphasizing other parts of the business? Thank you.
Good. So, on the forward rate, so how to read page 20. So also the scenario on page 20 is you always have to read that against the 2023 number. So if you go with me, you have the EUR 8.1 in 2024, then you take the -0.3 again for 2024, -200, so you're at 60, the same number in this scenario as you are in the above one. It would end with a net interest income of approximately EUR 7.6. The difference comes in the next year. While you would then add EUR 300 million in the upper scenario to your number, you only add EUR 200 million in the forward rate scenario without better change.
Same holds true for the lowest scenario, including the better change. So that's how to read it. It's basically you can completely read it independently and just take the number 8.1 as a basis and then make your way to 2027. Deposit beta... I mean, it's hard to say. Yes, we would assume always that when rates come down there will be also... There might be some changes in the deposit beta, but I think that you will see really big changes only if we really have a hard drop, and I think nobody is really expecting that from the rate environment.
But this is also why we are so open on 2024, because if we now have a stable rate environment, it might be that the pressure, the competitive pressure is not as high, and we will end up with a lower deposit beta. On OCI, the reduction assumed, that has a lot to do with what I said earlier on the NII resulting in treasury and the offsetting effects in fair value. And as rates come down until 2027, this effect basically get adjusted, and this is what you basically see here, the lower rates and the reduction here.
Otherwise, there's not a lot of things happening, and this year we also had some very nice effects, as I said, on income. On PSBC, I mean, yeah, clearly you could allocate even more capital, but capital is not the part in PSBC which is really driving it. Because as you have seen, we are rather conservative in the moment on the mortgage and the loan volume side, which drives RWA. I mean, what we do is we invest a lot into private clients with respect to the asset management offering, the private wealth management offering, to grow the net income business, but that is not really impacting the RWA situation and therefore the capital allocation towards PSBC.
Besides that, we have seen rocket numbers like that also in the past. For private clients, it is not something where we say that's totally out of range.
Thank you. And now I have a question from the chat again, from an analyst. It is from Seamus Murphy, from Carregal Capital, and I read it as it is here on my screen. It says, "For Manfred, please, can I ask two simple questions? First, you have said that you would offset any revenue potential shortfall with cost takeout. Why would you not undertake these initiatives independent of the evolution of revenue? Surely, this would be an immediate strategic priority to ensure that the RoTE target is more readily, easily achieved, and not be subject to cyclical factors such as the evolution of rates. Number two, on bolt-on asset management deals, why undertake these? These are traditionally very difficult to implement and not in your immediate skill set.
I suppose I'm concerned that you might do large deals that are value destructive, especially with your stock trading at 0.3x-0.4x book. Can you provide some context, please, of the merits of doing these deals versus buying back your stock, which should give you an immediate 20% return on tangible equity?
Okay. Yeah, thank you very much for the question. Let me start with the last one on asset management. This strategy is a strategy built on organic growth. And when we are talking about additional acquisitions in asset management, we are not talking about big acquisitions or buying assets. It's just rounding and supporting our capability and facilities so we are even better have a full set of offering for our private banking and wealth management clients. So I think this is important. So it's more in the light what we've done with Yellowfin. It's not big and not value destructive. We are not buying assets, so we are really taking care of what we're doing here, and it's only supporting and helping them on the 4% fee income growth.
We're doing that very diligently and carefully, but no worry for big deals. On the cost side, yeah, I mean, after finishing such a hard cost restructuring program, it is important that we keep up the cost discipline. And that's what Bettina is saying, that every year we are expecting an efficiency of 2%, 2.5%. And this altogether allows us our level of profitability to balance the different demands we have. On the one hand, we need to continue to invest in our digital platform, in our customer journeys. On the other hand, I think we have a very attractive return policy, and we have the right balance.
Steering with the cost-income ratio, definitely we want to keep, and we will reach our targets here, gives us then the freedom Bettina has already talked about. So I think with the cost-income steering and with the 55%, we feel very comfortable. If necessary, we can and we will always react, because unforeseeable topics over the next three years will force us, and that's what we are paid for reacting. So I think we need to have a good balance and between investments, between cost steering and capital return policy, and also keep our employees participated in our strategy. I think we balance that out very well in the plan going forward.
The next question comes from Anke Reingen from the Royal Bank of Canada. Anke, hello.
Yeah, thank you very much for the detailed presentation and taking my question. The first is on the 2024 RoTE. Could you clarify how much of Swiss franc mortgage provisions you have incorporated? I think you mentioned a burden in 2024. And then secondly is on the costs. I mean, you show us 2023 and 2027, but talk a lot about investments. So should costs be going up in 2024, 2025 first, before the benefits of all the investments coming through? And then, sorry, but a short follow-up question. So if your NII is higher, would that go through 100% to the bottom line, or would it go through at the cost-income ratio to the bottom line? Thank you.
Thank you, Anke. So on the RoTE for 2024, the assumption for Swiss francs, which we put in, is around EUR 250 million. I mean, we simply don't know, so we just plucked in a number to have a number in there. It might be lower, it might be higher. We will see. As I said, it's really very much dependent on the developments on the settlement side, but also what the government is doing, and what the rulings are doing. On the cost side, you have to assume that 2024 will be very much similar based on like 2023, and then you will have a very slight and constant increase for until 2027.
What happens, however, with respect to the cost, excluding mBank, because mBank sees a constant increase also in 2024, is that the cost excluding mBank will come down in 2024 due to the final implementation of some of the strategy of 2024 cost initiatives, but plus lower compulsory contributions. There will be, however, again, balanced out by an inflation topics, and also in investments. So that's basically the cost development. I hope that's clear. And on the NII side, you had a question. I only wrote down NII. What was it?
Does it, does it go down to the bottom line, or does it-
Oh, it's
with the 50, with the cost-income ratio.
No, it goes down straight to the bottom line. You don't have to put any cost-income ratio. Only the tax rate, you need to adjust when you're taking a net income.
... So thank you, Anke. Thank you, Bettina. And the next one, of our teams comes from Jeremy Sigee from Exane. Hi, Jeremy.
Hi there. Thank you very much. Firstly, a clarification, and apologies if you gave this, but I didn't note it. In the alternative rate scenario that you referred to, what are the rates in the four years? Instead of being 4, 4, 3.8, 3.3, what are the rates in the October forward rate scenario that you referred to? So that's just a clarification, and apologies if you already gave it. I missed it. And then the second, perhaps more interesting question, is just about the capital distributions. You're flagging for the current year, a big skew towards buybacks, which I think is a good thing, given where the shares are trading. Sort of two-thirds, one-third buybacks versus dividends.
Is that kind of emphasis something that you intend to keep in the forward years of the plan, 2024 to 2027? And then maybe this is asking the same question a different way: You refer to steady development of the dividend. Do you have a number in mind, like 10% per year growth, or what would you view as a steady development of the dividend?
Yeah, thank you. So, let me start with capital distribution first. I mean, I think the split which you now see is a good split. So it, it's I think also a good indication for the years to come. And I mean, you can also, back of the envelope, calculate the dividend that might occur in 2023 or for 2023. 'Cause if you do the math, something around EUR 0.30-EUR 0.35 is the result. And we started last year with EUR 0.20. So that gives you also kind of the way of steady development what we assume we should have.
On the alternate rate scenario, the assumption is that there will be a rate cut by end of 2024, that there will be rate cuts in 2025, and then you have a very similar number till 2027 because we assume the 3% all through the way.
Thanks. And the next one now comes from Rohith Chandra, from Bank of America. Rohith, put your question, please.
Hi. Thank you. Morning again. Slide 20 is rightly getting the attention that it deserves. But I wondered if I could ask another sort of point of clarification, particularly around the lower rate scenario that you were just mentioning. I just really wanted to understand, I guess, two things. So on the... I know it says no change to deposit beta. So does that mean when rates are cut, there's a full pa-- this assumes a full pass-through to depositors of those rate cuts, or is it something different? And then also, what does it assume on the model deposit portfolio reinvestment? So that was the first question. And then the second question, just to make sure I understood one of the earlier responses, which is around cost management.
Current plan builds in cost savings in order to invest for growth, and if that growth isn't there, then those cost savings just flow through, and that, and that's how you, that's how you'd manage the cost-income ratio for if there was a revenue disappointment. And then the final one, again, on distributions, please. I guess you've given us the RoTE outlook by year and also some indication of distributions. And you talked about potentially getting to that 13.5 CET1 ratio before 2027. How realistic is that to get the CET1 to 13.5% sometime before 2027, please?
Okay, excellent. So, yes, you are right. Under lower weight scenario, you'll be assumed no change in deposit beta, which means is really a pass-through. And on the no model deposit side, this is why I said, because if you take the forward rates, the longer rates are even a little bit higher. That has a positive effect on this, because the forward rates suggest higher rates at the longer end in comparison to what we have laid out as assumptions. So there are some also different effects in this scenario. I'm not sure that I got the second question because it was kind of disturbed.
You probably just repeat that in a minute, but I go first on the distribution question on RoTE. So, yes, we think you could have it earlier. It's all dependent, clearly, on the situation. You know that for share buybacks, we need to get the approval from ECB and the finance agency. But there's a reason why we said at the latest in 2027, because there is a foreseeable path also in our capital return policy, which is 50%, but not more than the full net income that we can get there. So, yes. And perhaps you just repeat your second question. I'm very sorry, it was just disturbed, so I didn't get it right.
... Yeah, thanks, Bettina. The second question was just to make sure I understood your earlier comment around cost flexibility. So I think what you're saying is, your current plan assumes some cost savings in order to generate some capacity for reinvestment to drive revenue growth, and that if that revenue growth opportunity isn't there, then that essentially creates-- that's where you create the cost flex to keep the... to manage the cost-income ratio.
Yeah, you've got it perfectly right.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Good. Perfectly right, and the perfectly right moment for the next question from Stuart Graham from Autonomous. Hi, Stuart.
Hi there. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you for the detailed presentation. I've got two questions and one clarification question. The clarification question is: I don't think you've given a 2024 net profit target, but it's implicit in slide 29 that it's EUR 2.6 billion. Is that correct? And then my two questions are, on costs, on slide 22, you talk about cost management measures, which can keep overall costs flat ex mBank. Just doing back of the envelope, that looks like about EUR 500 million of cumulative cost saves achieved by 2027 to keep the costs at EUR 5.6 billion. Can you quantify where they come from, and are there any more restructuring charges that you'd need to take? And then the final question is on payouts.
You've still got this fluffy language for 2025, 2027, above 50%, but below 100%. I, I get why you got to do it, but consensus is at 70%, and consensus has the CET1 ratio going to 15.1%, not 13.5%. So, Bettina, based on your conversations with the SSM, and I know you're conservative, but if you were to see consensus moving up to 90% payouts for 2025-2027, would that make you uncomfortable?
Okay. Good. Taking the last question first, no, it would not make me uncomfortable.
Yeah.
The second question, cost measures, management measures, it's. There's no restructuring effort necessary, because, as I said, we still have cost reduction measures coming into play out of strategy 2024. They will have an effect on 2024 cost numbers, including also you will see in further decrease in compulsory contributions. That is at least our assumption for 2024. That will be then offset already by investments, inflation measures on wages, et cetera, which we expect. And then for the, for the years to come, we are more in a continuous improvement program.
So we really try to free up resources, reallocate them, and that will be in a, in a manner that we don't have to book extra restructuring costs, but that is something which we rather take as a usual business, also using the demographics we have in our staff base and things like that. So that's basically no need, really, if we stay it with this continuous improvement for further restructurings. And on the 2024 target, you know, it's very much dependent on what's coming out on the NII. We now have a 2.2 for 2023.
There will be an increase in 2024, and I would say that it's very realistic that it can be something between EUR 200 million-EUR 400 million more. So something around EUR 2.4 billion-EUR 2.6 billion is probably a good assumption. But you can be ensured that we will give you a closer guidance on that one, beginning of February, when we see also how we started the year. And more importantly, we will know how we ended the year on our most important assumption, which is the deposit beta, because that will clearly drive already the revenues of the first quarter in 2024. You are on mute, Stuart.
Apologies. After three years, I still can't unmute myself. You have that EUR 900 million you said originally for the 2023 payout, but that was with a EUR 1.8 billion in profit, and now it could be a EUR 2 billion profit. So that's an extra 0.1. But then the math for the EUR 3 billion would imply it's EUR 1.7 billion payout for 2024, which would imply EUR 2.6 billion pre-AT1. Am I getting something wrong there, or?
No. I mean, it's basically... I mean, you did the math, so I'm pretty correct, I would say.
Thank you, Stuart. Now I'll turn to the chat again, and I have a question from Samuel López Briceño from Vanguard Asset Management. The question reads: Could you please further explain your 4% ECB rates assumption in both 2024 and 2025, especially in the context of your own inflation assumptions, only at 2.5% and 2.2% respectively? To me, it sounds like either your rate assumptions are too high or inflation assumptions are too low. I guess that's a quick one for you, Bettina. We had this in parts already, right?
Yeah, and, I mean, we basically just took, as I said, we used a source for it, Consensus Economics. As said, it will look different if we only see a rate decrease in 2025, which forward rates suggest, but it all put together, and therefore, I think we made it all clear on page 20 with a new scenario what the effects would be. Clearly, if there is a higher inflation, we also will cope with that, because it could have an impact on cost, as we all know.
And then another question from the chat, that comes from our analyst, Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs, and it reads: Another follow-up question on slide 20. In May, you confirmed that annual deposit modeling benefit was based on 10%-20% of the EUR 130 billion portfolio rolling each year with a roughly 100 basis points tailwind from the improved reinvestment yield. Am I correct in saying the EUR 500 million annual tailwinds across 2024-2026, and EUR 300 million in 2027, outlined on slide 20, mean you are now rolling a significantly higher portion of the portfolio, closer to 25%-30% each year, at around 200 basis points improvement? So the whole portfolio will be rolled by 2027, and then you should start to see substantial headwinds from lower reinvestment yields and sizable rolls thereafter. Wow, that's a heavy one!
That's a heavy one. Yeah. I try to answer this one. So yes, the replication portfolio. I would say... I mean, with our replication portfolio, the 10%, if you just take EUR 130 billion and take 10%, you're around EUR 13 billion-EUR 15 billion rollover. And I mean, in comparison to May, we all know that our interest rates and also the forward rates are higher, so the yields will be higher.
So you can easily assume that out of this one, with the results we currently have, overall the timeframe, we could either think about a benefit out of the whole replication portfolio over time, and that includes years beyond 2027 of around EUR 2.2 billion-EUR 2.5 billion, assuming cumulative, very important, cumulative. That assumes that interest rates stay as we have suggested here.
Now we have a second question on MS Teams. That is a follow-up from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca. Riccardo?
Oh, thanks. Thanks. I just want to move away, one second, NII and move to the asset quality indication you provide. Now, you say that, correct me if I'm wrong, that risk cost in 2024 is supposed to be EUR 800 million, including the use of TLAs, which is EUR 435 million. So technically, demanded provisions, the deterioration of the underlying asset quality is actually EUR 1.2 billion-EUR 1.25 billion. And this is technically... And I wonder, how can this be possible when you say that GDP is gonna grow 1-1.1%, 1.5%, if I remember correctly? You say inflation is gonna go down to 2%, so no pressure from... Well, let's say, much less pressure from energy prices and blah, blah, blah. Unemployment is expected to stay at 5%.
And you also consider that in 2023, with Germany basically on the verge of recession for most of the year, you will be charging less than EUR 700. So all of a sudden, risk costs should basically kind of double, despite GDP going up, unemployment stay where it is, and all of that. How can this be possible? Thanks.
No, good spot. But as I said, for the whole cost of risk, we always also look at the more conservative, or our risk department is also looking on the more conservative assumptions which are out there. And that includes the economic forecast of our own economists, which is at -0.3%. So that's basically part of the explanation. Plus, I think it's important, and you have seen that this year, I mean, if we don't meet the top-level adjustment, we either, at a certain point in time, will just basically release it, and then you would have a much lower risk result than we currently assume. Or you would still keep it for some other things.
As we know, since we came out of the pandemic, I mean, we started building up this top-level adjustment during the pandemic, and then there was a lot of changes and composition, but there were always some things out there why we kept this management overlay. But at a certain point in time, the auditor would ask us to do so, we would just release it if we don't use it. So that's really the basis for it that we have been on the risk result. We just assume for the moment that there might be a deterioration of the situation. Because at a certain point, I said that several times before, we have seen so low default rates over the past years, also due to the government measures, which were all good.
But at a certain point in time, we also need to have a normalization of the market environment, and that might include also, at a certain point in time, some higher default rates than people are currently used to. And this is just the thing where we have built in some cautiousness.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thanks. And the next, and currently, actually last question in the team session comes from Borja Ramirez from Citi. Hi, Borja.
Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me?
I can hear you. Mm, not anymore.
It was a good start. Yeah, we can hear you, Borja. You're calling on the phone, I know that, and happy to have your question. You probably again need to unmute yourself. Yes, now you're there.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you now.
Yes.
Yes, thank you. Sorry for the technical complications. Thank you very much for your time. I greatly appreciate it. I have two quick questions. Firstly, on the deposit beta expectations. I would like to ask what assumptions on deposit migration you have for the future? And also linked to this, is the replication portfolio a nominal amount linked to the deposits migration? So could you see the portfolio decreasing in terms of the replication portfolio? And lastly, a quick follow-up. On the cost, I would like to ask, what are you assuming for regulatory charges? Thank you.
Okay, I think that the last question is an easy one. We have not assumed any restructuring costs in the years to come. On the deposit beta, yes, we are assuming certain deposit migration. That is at least the reason why we see still an increase on deposit in the deposit beta of corporate clients, because we assume stable deposits with respect to corporate clients, but we expect still movements from sight deposits, which are with lower rates or pass-through rates, to either call or term money. Same holds true for the private client side, but on the private client side, if you look in our plans, we also not only assume mix changes, but also that new money is coming in and new deposits coming in.
And your second question, yes, I mean, the replication portfolio is strongly linked to the deposit. Not only the deposit itself from its size, but also with respect to the deposit mix. So it's very important: Is it in sight deposits? Is it in call money, or is it in term money? But, as you see in our plans, we are not assuming that the deposits based specifically in private clients goes down, and therefore, we also do not assume a reduction in the replication portfolio.
Thank you.
Thanks. Now we have a further question from Anke Reingen from RBC. Anke, please.
Yeah, thank you for taking my follow-up question. I just wanted to follow up on the buybacks. Should we now expect every year, like, a similar rhythm like you started now? You potentially tell us in Q3 what we should be expecting for the year, and then you start in the beginning of the year, following the financial year. So just in terms of the timing when these could be coming in. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, it's very much dependent on the year. Because if we have a year, as we have now, where we were already very convinced, after the first six months that, our plans are unfolding as planned, that we promise what we deliver, then it's an easy thing, or at least an easier thing, to then also come out and apply, for approval for the, for the share buyback already based on the half year results. I mean, dividends are anyhow always only decided by the next, AGM, so the 2023 dividend will be decided by the AGM, in, in, in May or end of April, 2024, and that will continue the, the years to come.
The thing which we can do faster, as we have done it now, is that we decide, based on the first half year results, that we apply for approval. And the plan is clearly because that would mean that we nicely use every AGM and the approval we have there for share buybacks. If we continue the story, we will use really every AGM, and our clear target is to do it like that. But it's... We have to watch out year on year whether the delivery in the first six months gives us enough confidence that we can go back to the ECB.
Thank you all very much for your participation in our capital markets update and for the lively discussion. Please do get in touch with our Investor Relations team if you have any further questions or questions that couldn't be covered in today's session. We all look very much forward to future dialogues and wish you now a good afternoon.