Thank you, Nadia. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the analyst briefing call of pbb Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG on our second quarter and half-year results. My name is Björn-Jakob Treutler. At pbb, I am responsible for treasury, and I have the pleasure of hosting this call on behalf of communications alongside our CEO, Andreas Arndt, today. You should all have received an email with the press releases and a link to the analyst presentation, which is available on our website. Andreas Arndt will run you through the main development and results, and after that, analysts will have the opportunity to ask questions. Without further ado, I now hand over to our CEO, Andreas Arndt. Andreas, please.
Thank you. Welcome to pbb's analyst call regarding second quarter and half year results for 2022. Before I embark on today's agenda, let me make a few remarks, sort of outside the agenda. You know that Walter Allwicher, who was our Head of Communications, Investor Relations, and Research together with Michael Heuber, new principal partner and point person in pbb, has left the bank effective as of end of June this year. I'm very grateful for his first-class work and his dedication to pbb's cause for more than a decade, and again and again, troubling times. We wish him all the best. At the same time, I'm very proud, and I'm very pleased to be able to welcome Grit Beecken as our new Head of Communications and Investor Relations.
She's presently head of communications and public affairs at HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt, who will take over her new responsibilities first of November, i.e., she will have a swift onboarding for the presentation of third quarter results. She brings on board an impressive career and impressive experience stretching from working with Financial Times, Manager Magazin, and Börsen-Zeitung from Corporate Communications of Deutsche Börse, Clearstream, and Eurex. As mentioned, from HSBC Germany, with a broad and wide experience in communicating banking issues across the entire business and internationally. We're very happy that we were able to convince her to join pbb. While she's preparing herself, Björn Treutler, whom you just heard, our head of treasury, kindly agreed to shoulder additional responsibilities, and thus bears Communications and Investor Relations in the meantime until Grit Beecken is on board. Many thanks to him.
He has clearly chosen an interesting time to augment his working experience. Now, with that, let me turn to the real reason why we are here today, why we have this call, and that is half year figures for pbb. The second quarter of 2022, which we are reporting on, is also the second quarter of the ongoing devastating and brutal war against the Ukraine with significant global economic impact, while Corona is presently drifting out of focus. Pbb continued to prove robust with PBT of EUR 65 million against EUR 62 million last year at the same time, which is 5% up. EUR 107 million on half year, which compares against EUR 114 million for the same time for the last year. A figure which was supported by significantly high prepayment fees.
Lending business provided again a solid performance. Its main long-term income constituents remained relatively stable. Risk-wise, we have no major accidents and no new accidents to report, and the costs we kept under control. All in all, I think a solid result, even though the economic and political conditions have worsened further. The Ukraine conflict continues unabated. Energy supply and energy prices remain precarious. GDP forecasts being adjusted and revised downwards. Inflationary pressure remains. Interest rates have risen and commercial real estate investment volumes have declined in Q2 and expected to decline further. Despite these developments, our earnings- and risk-conservative business model has proven to be robust and stable.
We are prepared for the increasingly difficult markets, thanks to our credit standards, high levels of provisions, while maintaining the management overlay and our stable capital base, as we mentioned and pointed out to you many times, which has been calibrated to the expected Pillar Two levels. Therefore, in a nutshell, we stick to our full year PBT guidance of EUR 200 million-EUR 220 million. However, realistically, we also have to acknowledge the market movements on the commercial real estate side, and we expect the new business to be and to land at the lower end of our guidance, which was set at EUR 9.5 billion-EUR 10.5 billion. With that, let me turn to page four, slide number four, which is the highlights with some more figures attached to it.
The highlights for Q2 and first half, NII kept relatively stable with EUR 120 in the second quarter against EUR 122 the quarter before. While the average real estate finance volume has increased and the net portfolio margin also did show some upticks, which compensated for the loss in revenues from floor income, which evaporated due to the significantly increased interest rate levels and did evaporate much faster than we did expect. Effects of the rise of interest rates, the strong increase in interest rates were also reflected in the realization results. In view of the high degree of general economic uncertainty and significantly higher refinancing costs, real estate investors increasingly are more reluctant to repay loans early.
After the exceptionally high income in the previous year, the realization results or the prepayment results stay on low levels with EUR 5 million in the actual quarter and EUR 10 million for the half year, which is significantly below the last year's figures, which stood at EUR 38 million for the half year. That is not exactly helpful for the period income, but it is also good that needs to be mentioned, good for the portfolio growth and the long-term interest income. Operating income was thus slightly lower than previous year. EUR 272 million compares to EUR 287 million from last year. General admin expenses were kept stable quarter-over-quarter with EUR 53 million and slightly up year-over-year.
It mainly reflects higher project costs, such as, for regulatory topics and strategic issues and projects, which includes digitalization and ESG, something which I will comment on further down the line. The cost income ratio stays at low level of 42%. As I said, no new accidents on the risk side. The net additions to provisions in the second quarter amounted to EUR -1 million, basically driven by stage one and two model releases on one hand, which were fully compensated by increases in stage three.
The scenarios assumptions which we applied so far have been aligned with current macroeconomic forecasts and equally taking into account also downside scenarios or as we call it, the strongly adverse scenario, i.e., a recession as well as the oil and gas embargo with an unchanged high weighting of 40% when it comes to model calculations. At the same time, we keep our management overlay at EUR 42 million after EUR 44 million the quarter before. Despite increasing headwinds from declining commercial real estate investment volumes, which we did observe in the second quarter 2022, our new business and real estate finance reached a solid volume of EUR 2.2 billion, which is about 30% up from last year's figure.
If you do that calculation on a half year basis, the volume is up by more than 10%, i.e., it's EUR 4.3 billion over EUR 3.8 billion last year. It goes without saying that we continue to put risk first, and that also shows in the average LTV, which continues to run at a 56% for the new business also in this quarter. The average gross interest margin is back on the level which we did compute the year before, i.e., 170 basis points after the lower figures of roughly 150 basis points, which was the result of a couple of larger low leverage lending transactions in the first quarter. Significant uptick in the profitability of the business and the margin of the business in the second quarter.
New business pipeline for the third quarter still looks good despite the overall market trend. We also have to acknowledge that uncertainties are further on the rise, and therefore we expect a new business volume for the full year, more likely at the lower end of our guidance, which we set at the beginning of this year at EUR 9.5 billion-EUR 10.5 billion. It also should be noted that the portfolio growth is ahead of plan, quite significantly ahead of plan, which is good, with an increase of EUR 800 million year-to-date and 1.6 year-over-year, amounting to EUR 28.4 billion, as we speak, as of June 30th.
That should certainly also support the NII line in third and fourth quarter of this year in 2023 to come. NPLs remain on low level with an NPL ratio of 1.1%. Now, given the situation which we are in, it's, I think due to remark that the exposure in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, as we have stated early on, is unchanged and there is virtually no exposure in the area of commercial real estate financing. We have no direct commitment and no lending against real estate properties located in these countries. In the area of public investment financing, a few loans with an indirect relationship and a low volume towards Russia, all three sufficiently covered by German ECA. The uncovered part amounts to approximately EUR 3 million, which was provided for as a stage three loan loss reserve in Q1.
There's no financing for persons who are on the sanctions list of the European Union. The indirect effects such as, for instance, a Russian company being a tenant in a Western real estate property which we finance are basically marginal or non-existent and are being watched and monitored and closely monitored anyway. The funding I can say the funding is as planned. We raised another EUR 1.4 billion in the second quarter, bringing the total new funding volume for the first half up to EUR 3.2 billion, which is 40% more than we contracted from markets or placed in markets last year at the same time. The average funding spread is almost down by 1/3.
To be honest, that's the figure before the market disruptions which we have seen in July. The overall tendency is good for the profit and loss of the bank. Strong focus remains on Pfandbrief, on matching currencies, and on green financing, and also in the light of the development of senior unsecured funding spreads, also on deposits which have gained in terms of relative attractiveness again. Capitalization stays strong at 17.1%. That's the same figure which we also did show to you by the end of last year.
With all that in mind, pbb stays on track, and we stay on track in terms of our full year PBT guidance of EUR 200-EUR 220, which we decided to leave it unchanged for the time being. However, that's also a matter of course, if things should worsen significantly, if market disruptions should increase, that would certainly require new assessments. As far as ESG is concerned, I will give you further details later on. With that, let me turn to page seven, slide seven, which gives a bit of a market overview on commercial real estate markets, and page eight, which is the overview on the overall economic and commercial real estate challenges. Now starting with slide seven.
The current geopolitical uncertainties and macroeconomic headwinds, combined with high inflation, higher interest rates, have certainly led to higher reluctance in the markets in Q2. We see a slowing investment volume growth in the United States, which was influenced by some extraordinary items in the last quarters anyway. We also have to keep in mind, and you see that actually quite well from the chart, the investment volumes are still at historically high levels, and that has supported solidly a good new business volume in Q2. Performance indicators for Q2 in prime and core properties remain largely okay. There are no disruptions as far as we can see, no disruptions in rental markets.
On the contrary, the occupancy rates are still maintained at very high levels, and the yields stay largely low as rents in the commercial real estate sector are usually inflation indexed, and they're supporting property values on the pricing side of properties. I will revert to that. Nevertheless, overall risks increases, transaction volumes are expected to go down further, and also the gap between bond yields and real estate yields is expected to come down further, i.e., other asset classes than real estate will become more attractive, and investments will be rediverted to other assets than real estate. That, in consequence, in our view and the view of the market, will lead to adjustments of yields in most markets and for most of the property prices.
If that sounds to you like an increasingly challenging market environment, you're probably right, and there will be more of that to come next quarters. I should also mention in all fairness that we see some mitigating factors which may soften somehow the impact of a significant downturn in real estate markets. First of all, what we observe is that there's still a large amount of liquidity in these markets, and the markets are capital-rich, which supports the ongoing investment in commercial real estate. Commercial real estate is still seen and increasingly seen again as safe haven. Real estate is and will remain in most of the portfolios, one of the core asset qualities and investment classes where people will go to invest in also in future. There will be some structural changes.
Some of them you're well aware driven by ESG or being driven by online and things like that. Also some new emerging asset classes such as inner city quarters or care properties. Markets, that's the other observation to make. The markets develop differently according to the regional specificities which basically adds to the diversification of our business and adds to the opportunities which we have. There is, for instance, to be noted that London, in comparison to, especially to the European markets, becomes more attractive because their yield changes or their yield increases were affected already in the last years since Brexit. We expect prices in London markets to be more stable than, for instance, in Western Europe at this point in time.
The other point to look at the other market is the U.S. market, which in terms of economic development probably is ahead of the European markets and therefore in terms of different cyclicalities, also a market which remains very interesting to us. The other point I should mention and point out is prime and core properties, which is our primary focus in business, are likely to benefit from flight to quality. As I mentioned, lower prepayments which go along with this kind of scenario. Lower prepayments will support the portfolio as more prolongations will do. To put it in a nutshell, yes, times will be more challenging going forward, but there are still, I believe, solid business opportunities for pbb. The major challenges are quickly summarized.
It's actually quite a long list, but concentrating on the most important side. We have seen that economic forecasts are winding down, and we would expect further downside risks to be considered. i.e., persistent inflation, and the fact that I think we have realistically to reckon that gas supply will further being curtailed combined with aggressive tightening of monetary policy, if especially inflation scenarios carry on as we see just now. We believe that inflation is likely to stay for some time at record levels in Europe and the United States, driven by elevated energy and commodity prices as well as by increased service price inflation. Same goes for interest rates, which we believe are likely to stay high or to further increase after some adjustments over the last weeks.
That's indicated by the central bank's actions, but it's more even more clearly indicated by the development of euro market rates, which increased between 150-250 basis points, depending on maturity within less than six months, which is a surge, which is an increase which we have hardly seen any time before. The third factor in this list is the slowdown of economic growth. We have aligned our assumptions, our scenario assumptions with ECB and Bundesbank, and we have added, we call it the strongly adverse scenario, which basically reflects the after effects of a real recession and complete gas embargo. We'll come to that on page 13.
For all that, and just to remind everybody, I think for all that we are well prepared by the high-risk standards in underwriting which we apply, by the sound provisioning levels in place. The scenario assumptions well covered the current macroeconomic forecast and equally taking into account the downside scenario which I just mentioned, or what we call the adverse, the strongly adverse scenario. On top of that, management overlay covers potential speculation risks as well as geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties. With that, and the strongly calibrated capitalization, I think we have a number of risk buffers built in to counter the current adverse developments. Commercial real estate markets, as I mentioned, investment activities declined in second quarter, with further declines to be expected in the second half of 2020.
It should also be noted that safe haven assets, the core and prime assets or markets are most likely less affected than the rest. For now, we observe property prices to look relatively stable, but that's been taken on the back of a few representative transactions in the upper segment of the market, while the rest still goes relatively quiet. However, most recent observations show clearly that the markets are slowing down further in response to worsening economic outlook and rising interest rates, with yields trending upwards and prices taking the opposite direction. To give you a feeling for the quantity of the momentum, markets would expect yield adjustments in the range of 50-75 basis points.
Given the yield of 300-350 on prime property, that sort of equates to something like 15%-25% decrease within the next one or two years. Also, to stress that point again, of course, these movements, these yield and price movements will depend very much on the segment the property is in, be it a prime or core or core plus location or a B or C location.
While we, I think, should safely assume that real estate generally is a decent inflation hedge, there will be price adjustments, not only because of the increase in interest as such. Interest increased as cost of debt from an investor's point of view, sort of makes the investment relative on new investments less attractive, i.e., if the cost of debt higher than the property yield, you run into negative leverage, and that certainly doesn't stimulate investment behavior. Strong attention is on developments which suffer from supply chain disruptions, rise in energy costs, and scarcity of building materials, driving up construction costs as a whole, and also driving up delays in construction.
The key issue which turned out to be the focal point over the last weeks and months is actually skills shortage, skilled labor which becomes rarer. On the price side for building materials, we could see some relaxation. Recently, prices have come down significantly, which makes it a bit more comfortable. Now, you find a summary on our views on developments on page nine. I will just give you a few points how we see the further development of that business. First of all, to make that point, development make up for 12% of our portfolio in terms of commitments and approximately 8.5% in terms of actual outstanding.
Most is invested in office, 55%, and residential, 21%, and the vast majority of the business actually sits in Germany with a small portion of 12% in France. The risk mitigating factors why we still believe that this is a good and attractive business to do is, by the way, how we focus on the relevant risk factors. Those are, first of all, again and again, experienced sponsors who have the capital and the experience to see through development also in difficult times. It is, again, a question of location and excellent infrastructure. We certainly have sort of strengthened or sharpened our view on the levels of pre-lettings or pre-sales, on the level of equity injections, ahead of the bank.
We also took trouble in getting recourse elements into structures to hold sponsors and investors responsible for the development of the development, so to speak. The other point is important for the structure to have long stop dates, which leave sufficient room for potential construction delays. The paramount issue in deciding whether to go along with such an investment or not is whether the investor has applied adequate risk and cost buffers in his calculations. The other point is, apart from regional stretch and the property type, what kind of phase in terms of development you're presently financing.
We distinguish between first phase, second phase, third phase. First being the land phase, second the construction phase, and the third one the finishing phase. It is somewhat obvious that the first and the third phase are the least riskiest development phases to look at. It is also good to see that we are mostly invested in projects which are either in the first or the third phase, i.e., with a relatively low-risk profile on our books. That also translates into the fact that we have currently no default cases on the development portfolio. With that, let me come to page 11, slide number 11, which gives you the usual P&L overview. I will just pick up on two lines before I go into more details on specific points of interest.
Now, the net income from fair value measurement at EUR 5 million in Q2 and EUR 14 million for the half year was mainly driven by credit spread and cross-currency valuation FX. There's nothing really to write home about, and the same goes for net other operating income, which is in an uneventful line with presently EUR 4 million, after some charges for FX, negatively impacted by FX changes in the second quarter. The details on NII development you find on page 12, on slide number 12.
As already mentioned, underlying income from lending business remains solid with an average increased average real estate financing volume of EUR 28 billion at an increase in the portfolio margin, which largely by and large compensates for the further decrease in public sector portfolio, where we lose NII and the loss in flow income due to increased interest rate levels. The NII remains relatively stable with EUR 120 million in the second quarter against EUR 122 million in the first, and EUR 242 million to be compared with EUR 246 million for half year last year. The effect and the rise of interest rates were also reflected in realization results, which is basically prepayment fees.
After exceptionally high income the previous year, it was EUR 5 million for the second quarter and another EUR 5 million for the first, makes 10 in total, and that compares against EUR 38 million last year at the same time. In view of the high degree of macroeconomic uncertainties, customers have generally held on to their financings and repaid to a much lesser degree than before. The strengthened, as I mentioned, long-term earnings base, less prepayments, higher portfolio figures. But it certainly also means that we have less prepayment penalty fees in the realization result of the current period. Now, turning to page 13, to risk provisioning. Risk provisioning was at EUR -1 million for the second quarter. The stage one and two model-based releases almost fully compensated for further increase in stage three for U.K. shopping centers.
The net release of EUR 15 million in stage one and two general loan loss provisions basically was prompted by the fact that the actually observed risk parameters turned out to be less severe than assumed at the beginning of the year. To give you an example, if the initial modeling or calibration of models was around, say, a 10% inflation expected for the second quarter, and the inflation turned out to be only 5%, then you have an overestimation in the model, and then basically lower risk parameters coming in actually, which at the end of the day for that specific quarter led to some releases. However, in view of further downside risk, we have adjusted model risk parameters further downwards for the quarters to come in line with actual economic forecasts until 2024, which we also anticipated model-wise.
We also take into account the further deterioration of economic forecast by incorporating a strongly adverse scenario. While our base scenarios, as I mentioned, takes into account the current forecast from ECB and other institutions, which still assume, by the way, a positive economic growth. Our adverse scenario reflects recession and gas, a gas supply freeze, and we have included this in the model calculations of stage one and two provisions with a high 40% weight. In addition, also being mentioned, we kept the management overlay, i.e., the retention of value adjustments despite parameter improvements at a stable, EUR 42 million. This, by the way, corresponds to a more than 20% of the stage one and two provisions on balance sheet.
Meaning if you take 380 for the real estate finance, adjusted figure, as you take the 42 divide by that figure, you arrive at 20%. We are thus also covering further reductions in forecast and the stagflation scenario that we consider possible, i.e., the case of a recession in connection with an interest rate rise again. Stage three net additions to stage amount in second quarter, which is predominantly driven by EUR 22 million additions to the already provisioned U.K. shopping centers due to further decreases in market values, partially compensated by EUR 6 million release of an office building in Poland. I did report on that case before. You may remember that.
After COVID-driven assumptions over the last two years, the decrease in market values, among other things, now reflects the assumptions of lower expected sales proceeds as a result of the current crisis, i.e., decreasing consumer sentiments, changed interest rate level, which is relevant for valuation of the property and a further deterioration of investor sentiment. In that context, a quick look at the next page on the NPLs, which are slightly up to 591. But still on a low level at 1.1% of the total portfolio. The increase is owed to the figure which I gave earlier on with EUR 27 million on another ECA-covered loan, public sector loan, which was put into default.
All in all, we retain or we maintain a solid stock of provisions on the balance sheet of EUR 380 million, which is slightly up from first quarter, and which is 25% higher than last year. The risk coverage ratio therefore is slightly up quarter-over-quarter at 128 basis points, which is 20% more than last year. The share of provisions in stage one and two, with no individual default, stays at approximately 50%, meaning that specific loan loss provisions and general loan loss provisions are basically half-half. Despite the conservative nature of risk provisioning and risk calibration, it also has to be admitted, frankly admitted, that model assumptions in this unheard of and unprecedented combination of adverse circumstances represent an increasingly difficult business for which management overlays might be one remedy.
What is more important is the right positioning and the right selection of the business. A, like we do, invest in core and prime segment business in core markets. B, do the same thing with good sponsors. Three, do it at conservative LTVs. And four, adhere to strict and restrictive selection on strict covenants. Now operating costs, general admin expenses, quarter-over-quarter are stable at EUR 53 million, but slightly up year-over-year. Increase is mainly driven by higher customer regulatory and strategic projects, including digitalization and ESG projects. Personnel expenses were kept almost constant despite the usual wage drift at this time of the year. The average number of FTE was almost unchanged. With that, the cost-income ratio is slightly up at 42% as opposed to 42%.
The cost increase which we show is to be equated to the investments in strategic projects, which we will continue even in difficult times. The first one to mention in this line is new business usage rate for the client portal remains at something like 60%-70%. The digital credit workplace further developed from design to implementation phase, and the ESG build-out continues as we have depicted it and have shown it to you on our last presentation, i.e., we do report and we can report on a strong ESG progress, which has been positively acknowledged by the regulator. We do report on the fact that ECB has confirmed our ESG risk governance being up to standards and being up to what they prescribe.
We do report on the ECB stress test for physical climate risk, which we successfully passed with almost no additional requirements. We can also report on progress, which is positively acknowledged by ESG rating agencies with a recent upgrade from MSCI from A to AA. With that, let's turn to page 17 on the new business. As already mentioned, despite decline in commercial real estate investment volumes, new business for real estate funds again reached a good level of EUR 2.2 billion, which is by 30% against last year. Half year is EUR 4.3 billion, and that translates into 10% up against last year. Average LTV at 56% and interest cost margin, 170 against 150, the previous quarter.
The regional split is 46% in core markets, for the core market, Germany, versus a portfolio of 45%. Basically taking the same line. The strong U.S. business to be noted with 25% share in new business versus a portfolio of 16% and 10% in CEE versus a portfolio of 7%. What also is to be noted is that U.K., with 2% share in new business and a portfolio of 8% certainly is punching below their weight. That's something which is presently changing. We've seen more business coming through the pipeline in July, August, and there will be more business to come in the second half. There's still some room to improve and to further this business.
By property types, we are predominantly engaged in offices with 51% of the portfolio. Followed by strong logistics, making up 20% in terms of the new business versus 12% of the portfolio and residential. There's a small share left over for some retail prolongations and mixed-use properties. Again, I mean, those and hotel business also, I think there was a small portion of that. Those are prolongations and extensions of current engagements which we have. As I said, by and large, retail is out of focus. We did, though, a larger extension in July for factory outlet, which we found very attractive. Retail is still territory where we treat with utmost care and cautiousness. The third quarter pipeline looks good.
However, new business volume for the full year likely more at the lower end of our guidance of EUR 9.5 billion-EUR 10.5 billion, as I just mentioned. On green lending, we see some further progress which we made over second quarter. The green loan volume is further up at EUR 200 million and now amounts to more than EUR 1 billion. And just as a clarification, green loans require explicit green loan documentation. The volume of green loan eligible assets is significantly higher. Now I think I can skip slide 19. If you have any questions on that later on, please come up with that. That brings me to page 21 on funding. Funding was planned with a focus on Pfandbrief, asset matching currencies and green financing and deposits.
In Q2, another EUR 750 million Pfandbrief benchmark plus a EUR 50 million tap, as well as a EUR 200 million green senior preferred tap were the mainstay of the day. On top, we had a couple of private placements, which brought us all in all to another EUR 1.4 billion in Q2, and a EUR 3.2 billion total new funding volume for the first half. Pfandbrief funding was strong, accounting for almost 2/3 of the entire placements. Unsecured funding was strong as well, with EUR 1.2 billion, almost fully in the senior preferred format with a high share of green funding. Also to be noted, the average spread was down by also almost 30%.
In July, we successfully issued another EUR 750 million mortgage Pfandbrief with a still attractive spread of six basis points. Furthermore, the rising interest rates and volatile bond markets make our pbb direkt retail deposit base more attractive again. We increased volume by EUR 200 million to EUR 3.4 billion in Q2, and we aim to further increase the volume to counterbalance higher unsecured capital market spreads and thus optimize our funding costs. We intend to further increase the volume at pbb direkt, but will however benefit less from rising interest rates than, for instance, deposit-rich financial institutions. On the capital side, also, things got rather uneventful. That's page 24. We come at a 17.1%. The capital requirements basically remain unchanged.
However, we also have to note new requirements by ECB, by Bundesbank, given the upcoming changes in country-specific countercyclical buffers and German sectoral systemic risk buffer, where we were calculating with 45 basis points in the past and have to raise that and anticipate that countercyclical buffer up to 75 basis points from 2023 onwards. Before I come to the summary, let us have a quick look at the strategic initiatives which are carrying on with add-on investments, with add-on cost. As we presented to you last time, we differentiate in three categories. One is product differentiation, the second one is green, and the third one is digitalization. In all three categories, we made progress.
Product differentiation, origination activity for offering new product lines, is still at an early stage and needs to gain further traction. I can say that all prerequisites are in place. We have, though, given, and that's owed to the actual economic situation, macroeconomic situation, have put non-senior on hold because of the market situation. That is, as we always say, the product when markets are on the rebound, but presently markets still have some way to go for a rebound. What is running according to plan is the build-out of the U.S. business, as I mentioned, with 25% share in new business. That translates into portfolio share up to, up by 4%, i.e.
16, and an increase in terms of volume by EUR 1.2 billion. Low-leverage lending remains core element in the current market situation with 35% share in first half 2022. Green has become integral part of our loan origination with previous expertise, well acknowledged by our customers. Green loan volume now exceeds EUR 1 billion, which is further up another EUR 200 million. The third point, digitalization. The client portal is well accepted by our clients, as I said, with usage rates between 60%-70%. That needs to stabilize further, but that also needs more clients which are being put through the system, and that's on a good path. Efficiency measures to cover the entire primary credit process, that goes without saying, are pushed forward constantly.
You may have noted the press release which we gave out yesterday on our cooperation with SAP subsidiary, SAP Fioneer, where we co-construct a new product called the New Credit Workplace. Basically is core to the initiative which we have on the digitalization for the credit process of the bank. Now coming to the summary. Pbb, I think that's the easiest way to summarize things. Pbb remains solidly on track despite geopolitical and economic developments. Risk profile remains risk conservative. Provisioning models are aligned with the macroeconomic forecast and assumptions, adequately taking into account downside scenarios with a 40% probability weighting.
Management overlay is kept in place to cover for potential concentration risks, and the loan loss reserves were EUR 380 million or 128 basis points, which is a solid and good and ample cushion against the potential risks. Despite increasing headwinds with commercial real estate investment volumes, have declined and expected to decline further. On the other hand, real estate finance new business volumes remain solid and the Q3 pipeline looks good. However, new business volume for the full year is likely to be at the lower end of EUR 9.5 billion-EUR 10.5 billion. Prepayments will be significantly lower than expected, but the absence of prepayments support the portfolio growth and thus the NII line in future.
Funding is well in plan, and the unchanged strong capitalization provides a solid risk buffer and puts pbb in a strong competitive position. With that, and all in all, taking all into account, we remain on track to confirm our full-year PBT guidance of EUR 200-EUR 220. Always subject to further market developments. If they should significantly worsen, we will have to reconsider guidance. With that, I conclude my presentation, and I'm happy to take questions if you have. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Andreas, and thanks to all participants for listening. We now have the time to take analyst questions. If you have a question, then please register your question with nine star on your telephone keypad, nine star. We have a first question from Johannes Thormann from HSBC. Nadia, please.
Morning, everybody. Two questions from my side. First of all, on your early prepayment fees, you guided for a range of EUR 5 million-EUR 15 million for this year. Do you still believe in that guidance, or would you update on this one? Secondly, on the new business, the margin jumped from Q1 to Q2 quite significantly. Can you give some more reasons why this margin jumped so much? Different risk appetite, different business setup? Please. Thank you.
Thormann, thank you for your question. I mean, first of all, I would have expected some congratulations from your side on the new appointment, which we have, but I take that for granted. Now on the prepayments, we said, I just said we're seeing five per quarter in the first half year and would expect the same run rate to come in for the second half. Is that guaranteed? No, but that's something which I would assume in my guidance. On the margin side, I think it is less a question of what the margins did in the second quarter than the question what the margins did in the first quarter.
We did explain that the decrease down to the 150 was basically due to the fact that we had a couple of large transactions, large low-leverage lending transactions with very low margins attached against that. That's these last transactions, but they basically did reduce the average at that point in time. If you want to put it this way, the 170 is more a mirror of, say, quote-unquote, "more normalized," picture for the business, with potentially also slightly higher share of business on the development side, which usually carries higher margins. That would be my answer.
Okay, understood.
Okay, thanks to Johannes Thormann. That concludes that question. We have a further question from Tobias Lukesch, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Yes, good morning. First on the NII development. I was wondering on Q2, maybe you could help us to dig into that again a bit. I mean, quarterly down, how much was the reduction here of this lower floor effect? What was the syndication effect? I mean, I guess that the U.S. dollar development should have brought tailwinds, basically. Maybe you can also quickly touch on the interest expense, potentially. I missed that in your earlier reference to pre-funding. Maybe you can again elaborate on the pre-funding level compared to last year, if this is much higher. Thank you.
Yeah. A fair point. Now, syndication is no specific item which is noteworthy in that context. What is certainly leaving its traces is the interest impact on the floors. That basically has been melting like snow under the sun in the first two quarters with the steep rise of interest rates. We will see a further decrease in third and fourth quarter. The good news in that is by then, because interest rates are definitely above zero, the 0% line, the matter of floors will be done with. Of course we've seen the effect of that in the last two quarters.
To give you a bit of a, say, indication of the severity of the impact, what we have seen as an increase in terms of NII contribution from new business or from increased stock in business or increased portfolio has been eaten up by the decrease in floors. That's a little bit sort of uphill battle on that side. The good news of that is the negative effect will peter out while we still build our portfolio, and we'll see the positive effects of that in the coming quarters. I think on the dollar side, on the foreign currency side, there's not much to report. The more interesting point is how, say, the structural changes in markets will affect the funding costs going forward.
As I said, we're in the lucky situation that we are, quote-unquote, dependent on Pfandbrief, and we have done a lot of Pfandbrief funding over the last quarters, giving us a very strong footing on that side. Senior unsecured though, you have seen the spread developments over the last weeks have become more demanding, more interesting, so to speak, which is one of the reasons why we did not go to market at that point in time, being pre-funded, sufficiently pre-funded ourselves. I think I made that point also on the last presentation. We took trouble to have a sort of long ahead funding level going forward through the summer break.
Nevertheless, we can also safely say that the funding levels for senior unsecured in the range of 40-45, which we have contracted, still contracted in the first quarter, is probably history, and we'll have to cope with higher funding levels going forward. Now, that is partially counterbalanced by the fact that retail deposits become more attractive relative to our funding levels, which we see on senior unsecured side, so that dampens the effect. It's also, say, a relative effect because the total funding consists of Pfandbrief plus senior unsecured plus deposits, and senior unsecured within the funding mix makes only some 33% of the total. So that's also dampening effect.
I think the natural conclusion in terms of keeping funding costs stable or making the changes more palatable to the bank is to increase the deposit volume, and that is exactly what we are striving for. We have to also consider the fact that those are fixed term deposits which are priced closely to the market. We should not expect the same level, the same gearing as universal bank with large stock of sight deposits from current accounts may have, because that's basically price insensitive to market changes. Still the relative delta to the senior unsecured makes fixed deposits as we do it with pbb direkt very much attractive and therefore we continue to build out that business.
Otherwise, you know, rising interest per se should not affect the bank too much because we are basically positioned on a neutral basis against rising interest. If the three months Euribor rises in the market, it rises on the active side of the business, on the asset side of the business, as much as it rises on the passive side, i.e., the liability side of the business. Therefore, yes, there is something to observe. Yes, there is some structural changes, but nothing which should sort of seriously hamper us in doing new business.
Thank you. A second one maybe on NII. Looking at the gross margin development and guided that this is a bit under pressure or lowering. If we look at Q2 or in general on the development, you can say the back book is down from 150 basis points to 146, kind of. I was wondering, was Q1 also back-end loaded with that strong new business volume? Or is there really a bigger chance, you know, like about the 200 basis points maturing or basically have run off? And secondly, on the TLTRO effect, that will bite in Q3, I was wondering how you can offset that quarter-on-quarter, kind of 9% NII impact going forward.
What is your view on that? I mean, will it be compensated by a lot of new business or should we expect NII to go down significantly? Then the last question with regards to the outlook, which was slightly revised down again, basically to the year-end outlook you gave on NII, which is slightly down. What is the definition of slightly? I mean, is it a kind of 5%? Is that slightly for you? Thank you.
Okay. I try to get this thing sorted out. Now, first of all, on the margins, I'm not 100% sure whether I got your point. The 150 basis points which we had last quarter, I think were driven, and I think I made the point.
That is kind of my back book calculation I have on your NII divided by the average financing volume outstanding that you report per quarter, basically. If you do that.
Okay.
Where the TLTRO and everything is included, kind of get it to 150 basis points in Q1 and 146 in Q2. The question is, you know, like, how you at the end of the day manage then the TLTRO impact and how margins are developing.
What we'll take that into context. Now, first of all, over time, yes, we would expect the TLTRO effect or the lack of that effect to be compensated or overcompensated over the next quarters to come by new business, but also more imminently by the fact that the calculation of the funding cost for TLTRO and the rising interest will give us some positive effect on the cost of funding, which partially compensates for the lack of the TLTRO bonus, which you were referring to. Yes, we will see that in third quarter in a more pronounced way. We'll make good for that in fourth quarter and 2023. That also sort of drives the outlook.
I suppose you mean the outlook on NII or rather than the outlook on PBT, correct?
That was the slightly down NII outlook, which was basically in line with your Q4 presentation. I think you were a bit more optimistic in Q1, compared to now.
No. I think that's pretty much unchanged. I mean we have no reason to assume that we should give a more cautious outlook on NII than we gave on the first quarter. I would say on the contrary, because the portfolio growth actually is a bit stronger than expected, and that should help us.
Okay. Thanks for that. Maybe a last one on the mezzanine and the loan-to-own business. Has there been any sizable development or are you eyeing more to act on that kind of newly approved asset class or type of loan? Or is that something where you do not expect, you know, significantly changes, i.e. also no real impact on new business LTVs on the asset quality going forward?
No. As I said, on the non-senior part of the new product range, we always said we do that if market permits. I mean, market permits because they would take it, but markets are also much riskier than we anticipated a year ago. Therefore, we do have a number of proposals on our table, which we were risk-wise would think or would deem to be feasible and doable. However, we have not transacted a single one so far, and we keep it this way until the outlook of the markets becomes much more solid. Yeah. We need robust and uptaking markets for this kind of product and otherwise we stay put.
That should not sort of influence our outlook for 2023 too much because the amount of business which we calculated in or did include in our planning for 2023 is rather small, and I think can be compensated by other means. To put it this way, it remains in our weaponry, remains within our cupboards to be taken out when the market is given the opportunity to successfully place that product. For the time being, the appetite is rather limited.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you, Tobias, for your questions. At this point, we have no further questions. Again, please let me remind you, if you have a question, then press nine star to register.
It has not, you know.
Well, thank you very much for your participation. We have no further questions, so we'll conclude this call. Thank you for joining.
Thank you very much, and have a good time. Stay healthy. Thank you.