A very good morning, and thank you very much for having joined us, so many of you. A warm welcome to Commerzbank's Annual Press Conference. I'm very happy to see that many of you are attending in person, and many have also joined us virtually, so a warm welcome to all those who've joined remote. I'm Philipp Encz, and I'd like to extend a warm welcome to you, and standing next to me is our CEO, Bettina Orlopp, and the designated CFO, Carsten Schmitt. A warm welcome to you too. The two of them will be taking you through the figures for the past financial year 2024, but also outline the new strategy upgrade Momentum and will give you an outlook for the current financial year. Following that, you will obviously have the opportunity to ask questions.
As for the proceedings in the Q&A session, I'll give you some instructions afterwards. And with that, over to you, Bettina.
Thank you so much, Philipp. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would also like to welcome you to our Annual Results Press Conference. You see us in another new constellation today, and I'm delighted that Carsten Schmitt took over the responsibility as CFO at the beginning of the month, and Carsten knows Commerzbank very well. Before moving to the north, he had already worked for our bank for more than two decades, and he is an excellent addition to our management team, both professionally and personally, and I'm really glad to have his support.
Meine Damen und Herren. Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently navigating through turbulent times. The political and economic environment is more challenging than it has ever been. Germany may have its third consecutive year of recession. Stimulating impulses from German politics have been a long time coming due to the parliamentary election campaign and the foreseeable difficulties in forming a government. At the same time, the change of political direction in Washington has led to the emergence of new positions whose disruptive potential should not be underestimated. The trade conflict unleashed by the U.S. president probably only gives us a taste of what is to come, including here in Europe. The banking industry has an important stabilizing role to play in such turbulent times. And as a leading financier and partner of the German SME sector, Commerzbank has a special responsibility here.
After all, the SME sector is and remains a guarantor of growth, prosperity, and employment in our country. Germany needs a strong German bank more than ever, and Commerzbank is stronger today than ever before. We are very proud of what we achieved over the past four years. For it's a fact that we have met or even exceeded our return and cost-income ratio targets in every single year since 2021. We delivered, and just to remind you, in 2020, this bank still reported a negative return on equity of almost 12%. The cost-income ratio at that time was over 80%, and the share price was below six euros. Since then, things have been steadily improving. Last year, we again exceeded our earnings and return targets without exception, in some cases significantly. In short, 2025 was a record year for us.
Despite falling key interest rates, our income rose by 6% to more than EUR 11 billion. Not least because we increased our net commission income by a respectable 7%. We've also improved our cost-income ratio to 59% thanks to continued cost discipline. Our net profit increased again by a fifth to just under EUR 2.7 billion, although we again had to absorb special charges of EUR 1 billion due to foreign currency loans in Poland. Our return on equity at 9.2% and the price of our share last night was more than EUR 19. Due to this significant increase in profitability, we will return a total of around EUR 1.7 billion to our shareholders for 2024. This is EUR 100 million more than originally planned. For the years 2022 to 2024, we will therefore distribute a total of EUR 3.1 billion. This is an impressive sum. But that's not all.
For we are going to capitalize on the positive Momentum that we worked so hard to achieve to make Commerzbank even better and more effective. The conditions for this could not be better. Our bank has a strong financial foundation, and we have a robust and adaptable business model that is an excellent starting point for further growth. Our corporate clients' business is the number one in the German SME sector. With a presence in more than 40 countries, we are a reliable partner in German foreign trade. Our private and small business customers benefit from a high level of advisory expertise in around 400 branches and can also take advantage of our services by telephone and video and in the advisory centers online and mobile around the clock. With comdirect, we are also offering a first-class offer as a digital main bank and performance broker.
Last but not least, with mBank in Poland, we have an efficient, fast-growing digital bank with an innovative mobile banking offer. mBank is really convincing and has a very attractive customer base and is an integral part of our group. Now, the task lying ahead of us is to take Commerzbank to the next level and to position it permanently among the other successful European banks. At our capital markets day this afternoon, we will present the details to our enhanced strategy together with the entire board of managing directors team. And I can assure you, we have clear answers to all the questions that our Italian competitor and investor has interestingly asked about our strategy this week. First of all, I would like to give you an initial insight into our refined strategy. But first, Carsten Schmitt will present the figures for 2024 to you, Carsten.
The floor is yours.
Thank you, Bettina, and let me also extend a warm welcome to you this morning. I'm very much looking forward to also meeting many of you in person very soon. As Bettina just said, I've only been on board for a fortnight now, but I know Commerzbank very well since I've spent most of my career here and was most recently head of finance until 2021, and it's great to be back, and I'm very impressed by what I've seen in the first few days. The bank has made great progress in recent years and is very well prepared for the future. I'm therefore particularly pleased to be able to present to you the best result in the bank's history. In the past year, the bank exceeded its targets for all key financial figures.
Already at the end of January, we had published preliminary figures because the performance in the final quarter was even better than expected. The return on equity over the last three months of the year was even in its double figures, and I think that says a lot about the quality and the Momentum of the fourth quarter. Let me now present to you the key figures for the year 2024. After a strong final spurt, our earnings rose by 6% for the year as a whole, even though we again had to digest a good EUR 1 billion for mBank's foreign currency loans in Poland. In the fourth quarter, revenue was 8% higher than in the third quarter and almost 23% higher than in the final quarter of the previous year. There are two main reasons for the strong Momentum in this final quarter.
Firstly, there was strong commission business, and secondly, a positive fair value result driven by currency effects. Net interest income remained at the high level of the previous quarters despite the falling key interest rates. The development of our commission business is, of course, very pleasing. For the year as a whole, net commission income grew by more than 7%. This means that we have clearly exceeded the target of more than 5% that we raised back in September. This goes to show that our various measures to strengthen this income component are taking effect, and all customer groups have contributed to this growth. In the corporate client segment, we benefited from good capital market business, but we also performed very well in trade finance and in the financing of green infrastructure projects despite the weakness in the German economy.
In the private customer segment, the good Momentum in the securities business continued, and the acquisition of Aquila Capital is also paying off. Contributions from the payment transactions business in the private customer segment remained stable over the year as a whole. However, the initiatives launched in 2024 and the recently announced partnership with Visa in the card business harbor clear growth potential for the coming quarters. We are very confident that we will be able to continue the high rate of growth in the net commission income overall. Our net interest income for the year as a whole was at the same high level as in the previous year. We almost compensated for the negative effect of the key interest rate cuts with higher loan and deposit volumes and good margin development, something we consider a success.
In the final quarter, the deposit beta even fell from 40% to 39% after overnight deposit volumes with relatively high interest rates expired. The volume development behind the net interest income is very pleasing on balance. And in view of the difficult economic environment, this applies in particular to significant growth in lending to SME customers. The total credit volume of the corporate client segment now stands at EUR 104 billion, which is a growth of almost 10% over the full year. For the current year, in our planning, we are assuming an average ECB interest rate for deposits of 2.15%. Interest rates on the futures markets at the moment are higher. We have therefore carried out our calculation with 2.35% at the end of January in order to provide an initial range.
In terms of volume, we are cautiously planning for slightly lower contributions from deposits, which will be offset by the growth in loans. For the deposit beta, we see a slight increase of two percentage points to 41%. We expect additional income of around EUR 200 million from the replication portfolio. By contrast, mBank's interest contribution is likely to be around EUR 200 million lower based on our conservative interest rate assumptions for Poland. Now, assuming that all of these effects materialize, we expect an interest surplus of EUR 7.7 billion for this year, and with the assumed forward interest rates, the interest surplus will rise to EUR 7.9 billion. However, this expected net interest income cannot be viewed in isolation.
Due to the way in which we recognize hedges for our interest rate position in our balance sheet, and depending on the interest rate development, there will be substantial offsetting effects in the fair value result to the tune of about EUR 300 million to EUR 400 million. Overall, we thus expect net interest income and the associated movement in the fair value result for the year 2025 to be between EUR 8.1 billion to EUR 8.2 billion. Let me now turn to the costs. The bank has once again been disciplined about spending. On balance, costs, including mBank, were higher, but only just under 2%. The costs of mBank rose due to growth, investments, and currency effects by 14%. Excluding mBank, costs actually fell slightly. Thanks to the dynamic revenue development throughout the group, we were able to reduce our cost-income ratio to 59%, which is more than expected.
We are aiming to further reduce this ratio to 57% for 2025. The risk result in the fourth quarter was below that of the previous year, resulting in provisions of EUR 743 million for the year as a whole, and this is in line with our forecast of less than EUR 800 million. Our portfolio is proving resilient in the current difficult economic environment. As there is no economic recovery in sight, we remain cautious, however. For 2025, we expect a slightly higher risk result at around EUR 850 million using TLA. Now, this covers the most important items in the income statement. Let me now move on to the individual operating segments, and let me start with Corporate Clients. Overall, the Corporate Clients business developed well. Revenue increased by another 5% for the year, while the costs fell.
The fact that the operating result is still slightly below that of the previous year is due to the Risk Result. Despite the economic headwinds, this division continues to perform strongly on the bottom line. The operating return on capital of more than 20% and the Cost-Income Ratio of 45% speak for themselves. Business with Private and Small-Business Customers in Germany was also very pleasing thanks to the strong final quarter. Revenue growth of more than 7%, stable costs, and a lower Risk Result led to a significant increase in the operating profit of 56%. Thanks to the growth in deposits, Net Interest Income increased despite lower ECB interest rates. In terms of Net Commission Income, these strategic initiatives in asset and wealth management are increasingly paying off, and that's in addition to the dynamic securities business.
The segment's operating return on capital improved by 13 percentage points to 34%, and we have reduced the cost-income ratio to 69%. mBank continues to be very successful in operational terms. Revenue increased by 38% to EUR 1.7 billion, and at just under EUR 600 million, the operating result was even four times higher than in the previous year. The bank also made significant progress in reducing its legal risks from foreign currency loans. The number of pending lawsuits was reduced by a good quarter last year. In the fourth quarter, the number of new legal proceedings filed was even down by 63% versus the same quarter of the previous year. We therefore hold on to our forecast that the burdens from foreign currency loans should decrease significantly this year. Let us now take a brief look at capital development.
Taking the retained earnings into account, the CET1 ratio rose to 15.1% at the end of the year. It is thus well above the target of 13.5%. For 2025, we are aiming at a lower CET1 ratio of at least 14%. We anticipate further RWA growth. The decisive factor for the decline will be the planned capital distribution, which Bettina shall explain in a moment as part of the strategy upgrade. My conclusion: we have a bank with a strong balance sheet and strong Momentum. It is on the right track in terms of profitability and efficiency. These are very good prerequisites for taking Commerzbank to the next level of development. With that, I hand back over to you, Bettina.
Thank you, Carsten. Ladies and gentlemen, I think it's clear why we have labeled the update of our strategy Momentum.
Over the next four years, we want to build on what we've achieved and significantly increase our speed once again by building on our strengths and at the same time steadily increasing productivity and efficiency. We always have all our stakeholders in sight. That is our shareholders, our customers, and our employees. We are aiming for a competitive Return on Equity of 15% for our shareholders, combined with an attractive capital distribution that will continue to increase over the coming years. For Corporate Clients, we would like to support their growth and transformation as a financing partner. And when it comes to our Private and Small-Business Customers, we would like to support them in building up their assets with a wide range of products and services.
We want to give our employees a greater share in our success through an attractive remuneration and the introduction of an employee share ownership program. The core of our success is and remains the trust of all stakeholders in the reliability, security, responsibility, and performance of Commerzbank. We are going to further strengthen this trust in the coming years. And we have set ourselves very ambitious targets for the next four years ahead of us until 2028. However, I would like to emphasize that this ambition is based in part on conservative assumptions and very solid planning, just as you come to expect from us over the years. Specifically, we are confident that we can increase our revenues by a good EUR 3 billion to EUR 14.2 billion and our net profit by more than 50% to EUR 4.2 billion by 2028.
This profitable growth will be accompanied by a significant increase in efficiency. Our goal is a cost-income ratio of 50%. At the bottom line, as already mentioned, we want to generate a competitive return on equity of 15%. Accelerated profitable growth and a consistent continuation of our transformation, these are our guiding principles for the coming years. We have identified five major levers to reach these goals. First, to achieve profitable growth, we are starting where we are already strong. In other words, we are reinforcing our strengths. Overall, we are confident achieving average annual revenue growth of 4% based on adjusted earnings by 2028. Asset and wealth management, our SME business, and mBank will remain strong growth drivers.
Thanks to growth in asset and wealth management in combination with other measures such as the expansion of payment transactions, we expect average revenue growth of 7% per year in the private and small business customer segment. We are aiming at further strategic partnerships, however. For example, Visa will become a strategic partner of Commerzbank in the card business. We want to gain further market share in the loans business with the German SMEs, even though we are already the clear market leader here. Last year, the credit volume in this area already rose by around 7%, and we have not exhausted the potential of mBank yet. I cannot emphasize enough, with a return on equity of over 40% in the operating business, excluding the burden from foreign currency loans, mBank is an absolute gem.
Second, an important lever for further growth is also sales and the strengthening of our omnichannel approach. Today, more than 55% of Commerzbank brand product transactions are already concluded online or via mobile devices, and this is complemented by the comdirect brand, which is becoming the main bank for more and more customers. We will also expand the sales activities of our well-established Advisory Centers and our direct bank for SMEs. At the same time, we are increasing productivity and market cultivation through better management and advisory capacities in the branches and through sales partnerships. Third, we will significantly increase capital efficiency through portfolio optimization and securitization. It's important to me that every customer relationship should be worthwhile in terms of capital investments. In future, every new business transaction must ensure an increase in value.
Fourth, we will once again and significantly increase our productivity and therefore our operating efficiency by making greater use of technologies such as AI, but also by use of shoring. We want to achieve a cost-income ratio of 50% by 2028. This would be an excellent figure for a bank like ours in our structure, even compared to our competitors. This will also lead to job cuts. A total of 3,900 FTEs, full-time positions, will be eliminated. This mainly affects central and staff functions, as well as operations in Germany. At the same time, there will be an augmentation of personnel in specific areas. Due to our investments and further growth, our headcount in the group will therefore only change marginally by 2028, albeit with significantly higher productivity. Please note that we've already reached a transformation agreement with the colleagues from the employee representation body.
This agreement outlines the fundamental cornerstones as follows. We are focusing primarily on demographic change and natural fluctuation. We will also be offering an attractive early partial retirement program this year. This year, we will estimate one-off restructuring costs of around EUR 700 million for the job cuts. The total annual savings from our efficiency measures amount to around EUR 500 million. Efficiency gains from partnerships will also contribute to this. For example, we hope that our latest technology partnerships with Google and Microsoft will lead to significant productivity gains. Fifth, and this is the last one, the last one, but at the same time the most important one. We can only be successful with the measures I've just presented to you if we continue to have qualified, motivated employees.
This is why we would like to create a working environment that will be one of a kind when it comes to modern and flexible working conditions in Germany. The five levers mentioned are flanked by further strategic partnerships and selective smaller acquisitions. Acquisitions are particularly conceivable in asset management and also in the tech sector. Ladies and gentlemen, let me summarize the financial targets for 2028 once again. Within four years, we would like to reduce our cost-income ratio to 50%, a net profit of EUR 4.2 billion, and a return on equity of 15%. This development will tend to be linear by nature. Progress will be continuous, therefore. For example, we plan to generate a double-digit return on equity as early as 2026 and earn our cost of capital by 2027.
Before I outline our future dividend policy for the period from 2025 to 2028, I would like to give you the outlook for 2025. We will use the Momentum this year, which we started very well, to further increase our earnings before restructuring expenses for the transformation. As prudent businessmen, we are calculating a net interest income of EUR 7.7 billion, although this could rise to EUR 7.9 billion if the current interest rates on the futures market are realized. The associated contribution from the fair value result is expected to be between EUR 0.4 billion and EUR 0.3 billion. All in all, this will lead to contribution to earnings from interest of at least EUR 8.1 billion to EUR 8.2 billion. We're confident that we will once again be able to achieve growth of 7% in net commission income.
We're still aiming for a cost-income ratio of 57%, and that would be another two percentage points less than in 2024. In view of the unchanged gloomy outlook for the German economy, we expect a risk result of around minus EUR 850 million, whereby we are likely to utilize our top-level adjustment at least in part. Taking into account the planned restructuring expenses for the transformation of EUR 700 million before taxes, we are aiming for a net result of just under EUR 2.4 billion. Otherwise, this would be a good EUR 2.8 billion. Due to the strong earnings performance that we expect for 2025 and following, we will once again substantially increase the return of capital to shareholders over the next four years. As already mentioned, we have decided on a capital distribution of around EUR 1.7 billion for 2024.
For 2025, we would like to further increase the return of capital by distributing the full net result after deduction of AT1 coupon payments, but before restructuring costs for the transformation, and this is also mapped in our new capital return policy. This makes it possible to exclude extraordinary non-recurring items from net profit when calculating the payout ratio. The planned restructuring expenses for the transformation in 2025 have already been agreed with the ECB in advance and can be recognized as one-off items. In line with the new distribution policy, we plan to distribute 100% of the net result by 2028 after deduction of the AT1 coupon payments and, of course, also depending on the successful implementation of the strategy and the macroeconomic environment. As a result, the CET1 ratio will approach the target of 13.5% by 2028. Ladies and gentlemen, let me summarize.
2024 was a record year for Commerzbank. We exceeded our financial targets, sometimes significantly, and we delivered attractive returns to our shareholders. The bank is in a strong position to continue growing profitably in the coming years. We have set ourselves ambitious goals and, at the same time, realistic goals for the period up to 2028. With our strategic initiatives, we will continue to realize the great potential of our business model and thus deliver significant added value to our shareholders, stakeholders, customers, and employees. We are firmly convinced that Commerzbank still has its best years ahead of it. Thank you for your attention. And now, Carsten Schmitt and I are happy to take your questions. Thank you. Great.
Thank you, Bettina and Carsten. And maybe a couple of words about the Q&A session here in this room and also for those who've joined us online.
For all of the other virtual participants, other than the media representatives, this is where we discontinue the webcast. Thank you.