Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Aktia's investor event. I'm very delighted that so many of you are able to participate today. My name is Oscar Taimitarha. I'm Aktia's Investor Relations Director, and I will be your moderator today. Yesterday, we published a release regarding our strategic acceleration program, our long-term financial targets, and our dividend policy. Today, we'll go through these topics in more detail. Presentations will be given by our CEO, Aleksi Lehtonen, and other members of the leadership team. And after the presentations, we are, of course, happy to answer your questions. If you're following us online, please feel free to write your questions in the comments field. And so, let's move on to the presentations. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Aleksi Lehtonen.
Good afternoon, investors, analysts, ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Aleksi Lehtonen, and on behalf of Aktia, I'd like to welcome all of you today to our investor event. We appreciate your interest and support in our journey. I'm excited to share with you today our updated strategic direction, our strengthened value creation plan, and our financial targets for 2029, and at the same time, I'm also very happy to introduce our committed new leadership team that I warmly welcome on stage later in this presentation. In our journey towards 2029, we will launch an acceleration program to transform into a leading wealth manager empowered by a strong banking heritage. We Aktians, as we call ourselves, we are extremely proud of our long-term banking heritage. For 200 years, we've been building wealth and well-being throughout the society, and during these years, we've developed a stable and strong foundation on which we build the future of Aktia.
As of now, we have 266,000 private customers and 24,000 corporate and institutional customers, which we serve through our three business areas: banking, asset management, and life insurance. We have around 850 employees and 42,000 shareholders. Our foundation is solid. We have a profitable business with a return on equity, currently at 15%, and a portfolio of EUR 14 billion assets under management. Now, we will accelerate our growth and value creation journey to become a leading wealth manager empowered by a strong banking heritage. If we take a step back and look at Aktia's journey in past years, we clearly see how we have developed the strong foundation. Our efforts have allowed us to significantly increase our profits, transform ourselves into a wealth manager, and at the same time, increase our efficiency and return on equity.
We see positive development in the environment we operate in, and we expect the pace of this development to increase going forward. We have witnessed a growth in investable wealth in Finland in the past years. First and foremost, this is something that I'm very pleased to see from the societal perspective. Simply put, Finland needs more growth, and ultimately, this development will lead to an increasing amount of growth investments, and at the same time, Finns will benefit from this increasing financial wealth on their behalf, and on the other hand, the situation offers a great, interesting opportunity for a wealth manager such as us. We have already seen an uptick in wealth management revenues, especially in active wealth management, and we expect this momentum to increase amid the increase in investable wealth.
At Aktia, we find ourselves in a good position to face the increasing demand for wealth management services. In our focused private customer segments, i.e., premium banking and private banking, we already have a much bigger market share, actually more than a double seen on the right-hand side, compared to our overall mortgage market share. This is a great example of our market position within wealthy individuals, and hence we are positioned well in this growing yet competitive market. And then looking at the world around us, there are strong forces shaping the environment that we operate in, already in the short term, but especially in the long term. At the moment, as we know, we are right in the middle of one of the highest geopolitical tensions in decades. We face challenges of unparalleled complexity and magnitude all around the world.
This has already shaped and impacted global trade, capital flows, etc. A war in Europe and in the Middle East, together with protectionist policies and trade wars, have left us navigating in a much more turbulent environment than we were used to. As a result of this, customers are increasingly looking for more stability and resilience from their financial partner. For us, this is nothing new. We have been developing society and building well-being for 200 years. Customers need a stable partner that can support them in these turbulent times. We are happy to offer this stability to our existing and new customers. We also see a big shift in demographics as wealth is transitioning across the generations in an accelerating pace in the forthcoming years. This happens not only in Finland, but also in the other countries.
As wealth moves to the younger population through inheritance and the associated wealth planning, we will see an increasing flow of fresh demand to wealth management services. The generational shift will also result in wealth dispersing to a larger number of individuals, and hence, a growing number of people, they need accessible and sustainable financial solutions, and we see this as a great opportunity for us, and we will support our existing customers in planning the transfer of wealth, and at the same time, we do welcome warmly a growing number of new customers to experience Aktia, to experience us, and we will call this democratizing private banking services. This means that our top-class private banking level service is offered to a broader customer base.
In this way, we believe that we can leverage our already strong position further within our premium and private banking segments to capture the available growth. The world around us is changing more rapidly than we've seen in the past. The rapid technological development, especially in artificial intelligence and machine learning, has fueled the pace of change to a level that we've not seen before, and at the same time, there is an interesting amount of regulation, increasing amount of regulation for all companies and for banks and other actors. The magnitude is even greater. We know that, and this results in an increasing need for investments across the industry. For us, we will invest in technology, data, and AI to drive resiliency, efficiency, and scalable growth. Our CIO, Oskari Kurki, will talk more about this later in the presentation.
As I said earlier, we will accelerate the transformation into a leading wealth manager empowered by a strong banking heritage. We have a strong strategic foundation and a unique market position in place, which I'll go through shortly, and going forward, we will build on our strengths and have a sharp focus on execution. We have robust financials with a strong historical track record. We have maintained a growing trajectory in operating profit and dividend, but at the same time, ensured that growth is also profitable. Our return on equity, at 15%, in 2024 is a good testament to this, and now, we have a new and committed leadership team to drive the cultural transformation needed to reach our fresh targets. This will mean changing the way we work and how we follow up our targets.
In addition to the cultural change, we are launching a strategy acceleration program to accelerate the needed change. We'll strengthen the execution of our value creation plan to ensure that we capture the growth in the profitable areas we have identified during the work. And to maximize the impact of the program, we've taken an external partner to kickstart the program management and leverage it further with us. We'll describe the program in more detail shortly. Our unique position in the market is defined by, first, customer base, which is strong in our core segments. Our share of premium and private banking is more than double compared to our mortgage market share, as I said. This is a result of a proven customer-centric service model. Our high customer satisfaction within private investors demonstrates the value of Aktia's personalized advisory services and product quality.
Today, we are the most active in town towards private investors. I'm very happy with it. Secondly, we are an award-winning wealth manager with top-tier expertise in fixed income, manager selection, alternative investments, and asset allocation. Thirdly, we were the first bank in Finland to successfully implement the renewal and modernization of the core banking system, and that took place already in 2017, and this enables continued development of data-driven operations. We will continue to invest into technology, data, and AI to drive resiliency, efficiency, and scalable growth in the future. Our robust financials are supported by our strong historical track record. We have a well-diversified earnings mix with a high share of net commission income and life insurance income, compared to the total income. This is broad-based among customer segments and driven especially by wealth management.
In 2024, the share of our net commission income and life insurance income, exceeded 50%, of the total income. We've shown strong focus on capital efficiency together with prudent risk management practices and resilient capital adequacy. This has resulted in one of the lowest regulatory capital requirements in the industry. Our full-year Core Tier 1 ratio, for 2024 was 12%, and our track record in paying dividend is very solid. We have consistently distributed 60% or more. For the last year, the board of directors now suggests that a record dividend of EUR 60 million, or 60% of the comparable profit, will be distributed, so I'm today very happy to present our committed new leadership team with a high ambition level. This team will accelerate our value creation plan.
Together, we will set a high pace and ensure that the needed focus on executing our plans for the upcoming strategy period is intact. To make our strategic plans a reality, we need to get all Aktia's, i.e., all of our 850 employees, fully on board. And we will be clear in our communication to ensure that all targets and the required ambition level are well understood and converted into action. We will also ensure that the needed accountability is there throughout the organization. Ultimately, this will require a cultural transformation, a change in the way we work. And we will build on our strengths and work together to achieve our goals. And this is supported by clear KPIs, which are connected to our updated variable remuneration plans that we announced to support the strategy execution.
And at the end of the day, to succeed in our ambitious targets, we need to succeed together. Each and every Aktia will have an impact on our success. And therefore, we will ensure that our leaders are well equipped to lead performance in their respective units and teams. I look very much forward to inviting our leadership team shortly on stage to go through their respective areas. But first, I will spend a couple of minutes to introduce the acceleration program itself that we have just launched. As I said earlier, we will strengthen the execution of our value creation plan with a strategy acceleration program. This will ultimately result in an increase of our operating profit through a concept of operating profit run rate. This run rate increase should be considered as a high-quality recurring boost to our operating profit.
Launching this program will not change the guidance we gave for this year in our Q4 result. I will ask our CFO, Sakari Järvelä, shortly to go through the financial impacts of the program in more detail. During the past autumn and this winter, we've delved into strategic questions. As a result, we have now identified 10 focused streams with numerous initiatives, actually more than 120 at the moment, where we can see the biggest potential for growth and operating profit increase. As I said earlier in this presentation, we have a strong strategic foundation in place with a unique market position. We'll build on our strengths and focus on identified profitable growth to drive the growth where it matters the most. We'll take an active role in capturing growth by driving momentum in premium banking, private banking, small and medium-sized companies, and institutional segments.
The win in these segments, we will build on our existing capabilities of strengthening the value proposition, build on our core offering, leverage outbound sales, and enhance cross-sales opportunities, and in addition, a major enabler will be customer acquisition, and that will be in focus in all of our core customer segments. Further, we will streamline our retail service model to build an efficient and high-quality service model with new and enhanced digital services and improved client prospecting, and as a part of this, we will explore if there are possibilities also to streamline the external reporting. We will strengthen our asset management operations by capitalizing on our high expertise and building on our service model. Kati will explain more in short time.
We will shift focus from active fund management into active wealth management by combining our leading investment expertise in in-house capabilities with high-quality external managers into a holistic, scalable, and segment-specific wealth management offering. There we will utilize the full breadth of Aktia's offering to boost also life insurance services through improved cross-selling. At the same time, we'll increase distribution efficiency to further develop our life insurance sales. All of this will be supported by our continuous efforts in data and technology. That is to enable growth in a scalable and efficient way, as well as the needed cultural shift I referred to in earlier stage. We are confident that through these 10 streams in the program, we will be able to achieve a recurring profit run rate increase of EUR 20 million, by the end of 2026.
And now, I will ask Sakari Järvelä, our fresh CFO, to take the stage and walk you through the full financial impact of the plan and our long-term financial targets. Sakari.
Okay, thank you, Aleksi. I'm recuperating from a seasonal flu. So if my voice gives me a little bit of a hard time, my good friend Aleksi will bail me out, but I'll give it a go. So thank you, Aleksi, very much for your presentation. And great to see you all here, both in the room and online. As Aleksi just showed on the previous slide, we have decided to focus on execution and delivery of our strategy in the form of an acceleration program. And a key characteristic of this program is to directly focus our efforts on creating measurable financial impact.
I will here give you an overview of first how we have decided to record and follow this impact, and also how eventually it feeds into our reported financials. The primary purpose of the program is to create a sustainable increase in operating profit. And we will follow this through a concept of an operating profit run rate. As shown here on the slide, the targeted impact is EUR 20 million, of operating profit run rate, over the next two years, out of which EUR 7 million, in this year during 2025. Now, what do we mean by that? The great majority of the detailed initiatives and work streams described by Aleksi, have been designed to have a clear financial effect, increasing our operating profit. So as we progress in working through these initiatives, we will estimate and record the incremental operating profit the initiative is expected to generate.
By run rate, we mean projected the forward-looking impact over the next 12 months from a given point in time when we do the measurement for the given initiative. As an example, by the end of 2026, the totality of all the actions and initiatives we have undertaken should result in approximately EUR 20 million, of recurring operating profit, that will be realized then in the following 12 months, i.e., in the financial year 2027. As we go along from here towards the end of 2026, we will be recording the run rate, impacts of all initiatives that we complete, and cumulatively, they should result in the EUR 20 million, by the end of next year.
Now, this is not to be confused with the actual reported operating profit in the next two years, as the actual realized impact generated in a year will by nature be lower than the run rate we talk about. Also, and very importantly, there are other external variables, such as interest rates, the forward curve, the market values of financial instruments in our AUM, general macroeconomic developments, geopolitical factors, a whole lot of impacts that will affect our financial performance and the actual reported profit that we generate. So the run rate is not realized profit, but an indication of what our actions should be expected to produce based on what is known at the time.
This may sound complicated, but why we do it, the most important thing that we want to achieve here is to make sure that we stay 100%, focused on the incremental financial impact of all the actions that we undertake. It is also very, very important to stress that this program will focus on growth acceleration, so the great majority of actions and initiatives will focus on creating top line. Embarking on this kind of program will also give us a great opportunity to take a new look at how we actually work and how we are organized, and it should result in efficiencies also on the cost side, but primarily, we are seeking growth in business and in new top line.
The final remark about the financial impacts of this program is that we expect to record one-off costs of approximately EUR 6 million, for the first year. These costs are primarily related to advisory fees that are of success fee-based or success fee nature, as well as some minor restructuring costs, and these will be treated as items affecting comparability in our reporting, so they come below EBIT or operating profit, so that's about the program. Let's move on into the new financial targets that we're setting for the next five-year strategy period until or ending in 2029. First, we aim to reach return on equity, above 15%, by the end of 2029, underlying this target is the current interest rate curve.
We reached 15%, return on equity, in 2024, but this was produced in an environment of higher interest rates that is much different compared to today. So what the target really means is that by the end of 2029, we will be able to generate return on equity above 15%, even in an interest rate environment that is lower, such as today. Secondly, we set ourselves a target, an ambitious target for gross assets under management exceeding EUR 25 billion, by the end of 2029, reflecting our very high ambition of growing as a wealth manager. An important note here is the word gross AUM. Previously, we have been reporting our AUM on net basis, which excludes the instances where our funds are held in funds of funds and we receive fees at both levels.
From the first quarter of 2025 onwards, we will be reporting AUM on both net and gross basis. At the end of 2024, for example, we reported net AUM of EUR 14 billion, where the corresponding gross AUM would be approximately EUR 16.2 billion. For clarity, the target of EUR 25 billion, should be looked at in the context of current gross AUM of approximately EUR 16.2 billion. We'll show more details on this in our first quarter report. The third financial target is growing our net commission income, organically by on average 5%, per year throughout the strategy period, reflecting our ambition to grow our capital-like business lines. Combined with these targets, we also update our dividend and capital policy. Our dividend policy targets distributing 60%, of annual profit as dividends to our shareholders.
In addition, what we are adding, or we're being more specific in stating that the capital that can be considered excess may be distributed back to our shareholders in the form of, for example, extra dividends or share repurchases. What comes to capitalization, we target a Core Equity Tier 1 ratio, that is 2-4 percentage points, above our regulatory minimum requirement. This corresponds to the previous target of CET1 ratio, 1.5 percentage points, above the regulatory requirement. We firmly believe that the strong capitalization is an important competitive factor for Aktia. And with this range target, we can now provide more clarity on what we mean by CET1 ratio that corresponds to a prudent but not inefficient level of capitalization. We can also guide that typically we would expect to operate at the higher end of this range on a typical year.
Then, as the financial targets are by nature long-term and reflect ambition levels at the end of our strategy period 2029, we also want to be a bit more transparent on how we will follow our progress. To start with, as regards the strategy execution program, which will be an important part in the next two years, we will be reporting on our progress every six months in our second quarter and fourth quarter reports. The other key indicators we will be following very closely and measuring are the following. First, as we're embarking on a growth program, we will be closely following the number of premium and private banking customers, which we would expect to grow approximately 2% per year. Secondly, the assets under management, is a key measure we will pay very close attention to.
It is important to note, though, that the Gross AUM, is expected to grow with the number of customers with a certain multiplier. There is an expectation that AUM growth should accelerate towards the end of the strategy period. Hence, we can guide as an interim target that Gross AUM, should reach EUR 20 billion, by the end of 2027, before then reaching EUR 25 billion, by the end of 2029. Generally, there will always be some volatility in AUM from month to month and quarter to quarter, but we are primarily focused on executing the right actions for the long term and seeing AUM trend-wise on an increasing and accelerating path. As stated, we expect Net Commission Income, to grow on average 5%, per year over the period. These are the three indicators that we and you can follow on a regular basis as we go along.
Underlying all these financial indicators is the satisfaction of our employees and our customers, signaling that we are delivering on the Aktia Experience that is at the core of our strategy, and of which Sini will be explaining more shortly. So employee engagement and customer satisfaction indicators will be closely followed as on an ongoing basis. With that, I will hand the word back to Aleksi. Take it away.
Thank you, Sakari. Yeah, I'm fine. To reiterate, we have ambitious targets, and we have a thorough plan, which we are committed to execute. I think this is best summarized by saying succeeding where it matters the most. And before welcoming the rest of the leadership team, let me introduce our key priorities, which are closely linked to our 10 work streams we just went through. I'd like to highlight the importance of succeeding where it matters the most.
We will accelerate within the areas where we see the best opportunities for growth to build our business to be the better fit for the future. So first, active wealth management. We will support our customers to grow and transfer wealth with clear long-term plans and a holistic approach. This will be very much supported by a big generational shift in wealth, which is inevitable. We will leverage our strengths and further develop our capabilities to capture this opportunity. Number two, winning in strategic segments. We'll take an active role in driving success in premium, private banking, SMEs, and institutional segments. This is nothing new to us. As stated, our market share in premium private banking is more than a double compared to the overall mortgage market share. And we'll build on our existing capabilities to strengthen the value proposition, building our core offering, leverage outbound sales and cross-sales.
Number three, the Aktia Experience. So combining the employee and customer satisfaction into one. A needed cultural shift. It starts and ends with our customers. To be the best for our customers, we leverage our skilled and committed employees to deliver tailored solutions, understanding, and responding to customers' financial needs. The cultural shift is a necessity to further enhance our customer and employee experience. And all this, as said, will be enabled by our investments into data and technology. We'll uplift the digital customer experience and strengthen our data and technology foundation to enable the growth in a scalable and an efficient way. So next, please let me welcome Kati Eriksson, Executive Vice President, Asset Management, to the stage. Kati, take it away.
Thank you, Aleksi. Welcome also on my behalf. As Aleksi mentioned, we have played a fundamental role in building Finnish society and wealth for generations.
Throughout our history, we have provided stability and growth for our customers during both the ups and downs of the market. Now, as the wealth transitions across generations, a growing number of people need accessible and sustainable financial solutions. Wealth management customers want simple, modular solutions that fit their needs, are managed with sustainable and highly professional investment processes, and increasingly with passive and alternative components included. At the same time, the industry is facing margin pressure due to the rise of passive funds and increased competition. During our strategy period, we are taking several actions to respond to the changes in customer demand and to offset the pressure on profitability. Across our strategic segments, Aktia helps customers grow and transfer wealth with clear long-term plans and a holistic approach.
We are shifting to active wealth management by combining our leading investment expertise and in-house capabilities with high-quality external managers into a holistic, scalable, segment-specific wealth management offering. This shift towards active wealth management, the whole concept of managing customers' wealth in a holistic and systematic way, will both grow value to our customers, but also fight against the margin compression that Aktia will continue to face in the next strategy period. We will reduce and refocus our product mix to deliver greater customer value in a scalable fashion, with increased focus on discretionary portfolio management, in-house alternatives offering, and centralized wealth fund solutions. High-quality, future-proof wealth management operations consist of professional asset allocation and portfolio construction, strong in-house capabilities complemented with high-quality external managers, active and passive offering, liquid and illiquid products. Aktia has all the necessary components for a very attractive wealth management offering.
Going forward, we will be better at bringing these different building blocks together, both within the investment product point of view, but also we will be better at bringing our banking and insurance capabilities to benefit our wealth management customers. In Aktia Asset Management, we have clear pockets of excellence. From now on, we will leverage these existing strengths better. At the same time, we will restore and develop the areas where we are not strong enough. Our manager selection capabilities are recognized all the way up to the biggest institutional investors. Going forward, we will leverage these capabilities to benefit all our strategic segments as a complement to our leading investment expertise and strong in-house capabilities. We will accelerate our alternative investments platform to provide wealth creation opportunities in private markets for all strategic segments.
We will fully leverage our manager selection and private market transaction capabilities in alternative investments. To enhance customer portfolio diversification and return potential, alternative investments play an important role. During the strategy period, we aim to double the fee income derived from alternative investments, increase Alternatives AUM by 25%, and increase Aktia Alternatives share of Alternatives AUM from around 25% to 90%. We will execute this growth via evergreen funds, such as our diversified multi-manager evergreen fund and tailored closed-end solutions, which we build on our well-recognized manager selection capabilities. Our award-winning spearhead emerging market debt products are globally recognized. To sell to biggest Finnish institutions and large international investors, we have developed a very systematic and high-quality investment process. Going forward, the EMD processes will set the future standard for all Aktia investment products, helping us lift the bar across all products and asset classes.
As said, we target ambitious AUM and wealth management net commission income growth. We are confident that we will deliver these ambitions with these concrete actions. We will deliver fit-for-need but scalable offering for all our strategic segments, servicing their differentiated needs by using the same high-quality building blocks for investment offering, complemented with banking and insurance products and services. We have the foundation, a clear path forward, and the right people to execute on this vision. Now it's about focusing on execution, bringing our offering to life, ensuring our teams are equipped to succeed, and ultimately delivering exceptional value to our customers and stakeholders. We are all set and already on our way. This is an exciting time for Aktia, and I look forward to building this future together with our people.
Next, please let me welcome Anssi Huhta, Executive Vice President, Banking, to the stage to go through the strategic segments. Anssi, the stage is yours.
Thank you, Kati and Aleksi. We all know that we live in a time where change is happening faster than ever. Over the past decades, especially in recent years, technology has completely reshaped how people use financial services. This brings incredible opportunities both for our customers and us here at Aktia. But one thing hasn't changed. Our customers' fundamental needs remain the same. And neither has our mission to help our customers and society build wealth. And now we are taking this even further. We are making private banking more accessible than ever, as Aleksi said. We are setting a new standard for the affluent banking experience, and we are helping more Finns achieve their financial goals.
We have a strong foundation for our success, and the numbers prove it. Our customer service NPS is 60. Customer meeting NPS has exceeded 70, reaching astonishing 73, and our newly launched Senior Service Live, achieved perfect 100 NPS. These are fantastic results, but we are not stopping here, and we are aiming higher. We are now sharpening our focus. We are focusing our resources and capabilities on key segments. We are taking a more proactive approach while ensuring that everything we do adds real value to our private banking and premium banking customers, and when we do this systematically, the results will show on our bottom line. We also firmly believe that our offering and service level truly set us apart, so how are we making this happen? First, we are making private banking stronger.
We are moving more assets into centralized mandates, and this will give our bankers more time to focus on meaningful customer interactions. This will help us grow, as our bankers can spend more time bringing in new customers, and the change is good also for our customers, and it leads to an even better customer experience. This is what sets us apart in the market. Secondly, we are expanding our premium banking offering. We are setting a new industry standard by offering private banking level service to a broader customer base. We all know that the demand for active wealth management is growing. This will help us attract new customers and increase the value we provide to our existing ones. Thirdly, we are enhancing the customer experience. Our customers value personal service, and we are committed to delivering it.
At the same time, we recognize the need for flexibility and convenience. That's why we are improving our digital self-service channels to make sure our customers have the best options available. Whether they prefer face-to-face meetings, seamless digital interactions, we are making sure they get what they need. On the corporate side, we are unlocking the potential of SMEs. SMEs, especially owner-led businesses, have been underserved in personalized, high-quality financial services, and we see a huge opportunity to change that. We are taking a more holistic approach. We are just not helping SMEs fund growth or manage cash flows. We are going beyond that by offering wealth management solutions tailored for business owners. This is how we create real long-term impact, and the results are already there. Corporate NPS 56. NPS for our relationship managers is 73. We are capable to do this.
These numbers confirm that we are on the right path. But once again, we are aiming higher. The key part of financial security is life insurance. Our life insurance offering, especially unit-linked solutions, plays a crucial role in ensuring our customers' long-term financial well-being. By strengthening our advisory capabilities, integrating life insurance more seamlessly into our broader wealth management solutions, we are ensuring that our customers can build and protect their wealth more successfully. And they get comprehensive solutions tailored to their needs, whether they are accumulating assets, securing their family future, or planning for generational wealth transfer. This is an area where we have a tremendous potential, and we are committed to raising the bar even further. Lastly, Kati, would you like to give an insight on our institutional segment?
Sure. Thank you, Aleksi. Anssi. Yes.
In the institutional segment, we are employing a new and more structured and systematic service model for institutions, which we build on stability, trust, and long-term partnerships. We offer an active customer teaming approach with coordinated access to our portfolio managers and specialists for expert advice. This, together with our sharp investment expertise, high-quality investment processes and products, and deep understanding of the institutional operating environment, will deliver a strengthening of our market position in the institutional segment in Finland and beyond. We target highly ambitious sales and AUM uplift across key metrics, including improving our activity and RFP hit rate, growing share of wallet, and improving profitability through alternative sales. We will also solidify our international growth platform by pooling AUM, selectively adding products to international distribution, and actively managing our sales channels in target markets, and focusing on targeted in-house sales in the Nordics.
With these actions, we will regain our position as one of the top providers for the Finnish institutional segment.
So we are strengthening our position across all key segments. We are expanding our reach among affluent and high-net-worth individuals. We are growing our presence in the SME sector, and we are reclaiming our position as a top provider in the institutional segment. We are redefining affluent banking experience while staying true to our purpose and helping our customers and society build wealth. And now it's time to focus on Aktia Experience and our cultural transformation. Please welcome Sini Kivekäs, Executive Vice President, Group Functions. To the stage. Welcome, Sini.
Thank you, Kati and Anssi. Now it's time to deep dive into Aktia Experience, which we consider to be one of the game changers when accelerating our way forward. Aktia Experience is a new approach to employee and customer satisfaction.
It is known that high employee satisfaction and engagement reflects positively on customer experience. That is why many companies, including us, put a lot of focus on employee experience. We at Aktia are taking this even further, wanting to be a forerunner in combining employee and customer experience into one. We are aligning the internal culture, how we operate, with the external experience, how the world sees us, and we'll make it our superpower to achieve our strategic targets. This is called Aktia Experience. Now let me explain what we are aiming for and what this means in practice. Whether you are a private customer pursuing long-term growth, an SME seeking a growth partner, or an institutional investor exploring innovative opportunities, we aim at delivering world-class solutions with a human touch. Unlike traditional banks, we continue specializing in personalized service.
While technology boosts our capabilities, it is our skilled personnel who deliver true value and focused attention. We are known for our personal approach and accessibility and recognized for keeping up the most active dialogue with our customers. This is a strength we will continue to focus on. But we will boost the customer value creation even further by ensuring that our internal culture, organization, and ways of working become even more customer-focused. We have already started this journey by shaping our joint culture at Aktia. We are taking our values courageously, skillfully, and together into the way we act in our everyday encounters with our colleagues and customers. We are putting strong focus in the way how we work. One concrete example of this is that we have put collaboration as a goal for our employees in our annual target-setting process.
We are also putting strong focus on the performance of all Aktia employees. All our employees will have clear and concrete targets with link to our strategy and customer value creation. Our leaders have been trained to coach their teams, and they will get training on how to communicate the strategy towards their people, set clear targets, and follow up performance. All Aktia employees will understand how we want to serve our customers at Aktia and will know what is expected from them to achieve the level we are reaching for throughout the new strategy period. We consider that succeeding in the cultural change requires also change in the way we reward our personnel. Until now, only part of the personnel has participated in our variable remuneration schemes. From now on, all Aktia employees will be part of these schemes that will be strongly targeted and performance-based.
Every employee can affect their own possibility to get rewarded, and the best performance will be rewarded for each year. In addition, we are launching a new variable pay plan for our key employees, including leadership team and CEO. The plan will include both long and short-term incentive periods with ambitious target levels. The long-term LTI plan, for the next three years will be heavily driven by total shareholder return metrics. The intention of this is to align the things we do strongly and clearly with our shareholders' interests. In the STI plan, one metric will be operating profit run rate, with which we will follow up the progress of our goals under the acceleration program on an annual basis. Naturally, we will also focus on our organization in order to strengthen right service models, roles, and competencies.
Our HR strategy enables our employees to grow with Aktia and our customers. We have skilled and committed employees, and we are looking into the ways of working and competence building to ensure their growth and ability to understand and respond to our customers' financial needs. Thanks to our size, our experts have the opportunity to collaborate to offer a unique and comprehensive approach to financial advice. Our close way of working together, both internally and with the customers, ensures that our customers receive solutions that seamlessly combine the full expertise of banking and wealth management, tailored precisely to their needs. Together, we can provide the best solutions from one place, something customers rarely get in the financial industry.
By the Aktia Experience concept and the cultural shaping underneath, we will now take the most out of our opportunities and commit to accessibility, collaboration, and excellence to ensure every customer benefits from our comprehensive and forward-looking wealth management. This is the story behind Aktia Experience, and now we will move into the world of technology. Let's welcome our Chief Information Officer, Oskari Kurki, to the stage. Welcome.
Thanks a lot, Sini. Very good afternoon also from my behalf. I'm also actually recovering from a seasonal flu, so please bear with me if my voice is a little bit pressed. Technology and utilization of technology is at the core of financial services. Good operational reliability and cybersecurity is the foundation of our business, which is based on trust. Reliability is also very important from an operational efficiency perspective. During the past years, we have increased our level in IT investments.
Mainly, this is due to the development of our core platforms. Aktia is one of the few banks that has upgraded its core banking system, while there are many banks that still face major upgrades, consuming a significant amount of resources. In the beginning of the strategy period, we will continue to invest significantly in our core systems, for example, in life insurance and wealth management, to secure our foundation for the coming years. Our intention is to keep our IT investments roughly on the current level during the strategic period in order to further develop our business and customer experience. Our solid technological platform will be supported by a focus on operational excellence and processes in IT. Data is considered the oil of the future. The ability to derive value from data is crucial, but with data, you also need to get the basics right.
You need to have a clear ownership of data, as well as data governance and good data quality. On top of this foundation, we are building our cloud-based common data platform that we will utilize through our improved analytics capabilities and AI. During the strategy period, we will also be increasing our cloud footprint. This will support efficiency, scalability, and agility. We are also looking into ways of leveraging AI. We are enabling the use of generative AI tools, including productivity tools for our organization, and we will continue to explore possibilities and other use cases based on the input from our organization. From the AI use cases, we have built and continue building our AI roadmap that will change the way the bank operates. The leap to AI-based tools, we will have a large impact on how we work, and it will require constant coaching and support.
We will invest in these competencies to ensure that our organization is future-fit. Improving our digital self-service capabilities is extremely important for us in order to achieve excellent customer experience and also in the future. And we will continue to develop our web and mobile services. This will further support the work around Aktia Experience. We will also continue to manage the cost of IT services going forward. We have identified and already implemented several initiatives that will improve the efficiency of our IT. We will continue to do so throughout the strategy period. In connection with the system development work, we constantly assess our current technology portfolio. As part of our Q4 24 release, we announced an impairment following a reassessment we made on accounting values and depreciation times of some of our IT assets, large part of which relates to our core banking platform.
With these priorities, we are well equipped in Aktia IT to support the Aktia strategy. Next, I would like to welcome Aleksi back on stage. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Oskari. And finally, I'd like to talk about sustainability. Sustainability is not an overlay to our business. It is something that we believe is an integral part of the business. Our ambition is to build sustainable wealth for our customers, investors, society, and ultimately a better world. And this is a key area for us where we are happy to say that we have already made concrete progress toward our targets. And hence, I'm proud to say that our full year 2024, we are well ahead of our 2025 target to reduce our carbon footprint.
And at the same time, a large majority, actually 98%, of the capital invested in our funds, is invested in responsible funds according to SFDR Article 8 and 9. And we will continue to be an active player in this, and we will present an updated sustainability program later this year with the updated targets. So, putting all this together to sum up, our direction is clear. We will build on our strengths, and we will accelerate our value creation journey. We will succeed where it matters the most by focusing on our core strategic priorities, Active Wealth Management, winning strategic segments, and thirdly, the Aktia Experience that Sini, walked us through. This will ultimately result in us delivering on our long-term financial targets, i.e., above 15%, return on equity, above EUR 25 billion, in gross assets, under management, and above 5%, organic growth in our net commission income annually.
This by the end of 2029. As said, we will launch an acceleration program to transform into a leading wealth manager empowered by a strong banking heritage. Thank you all for the active listening. We are now ready to open the mics, the lines, and circulate the microphone and answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Thank you for the presentations. Nice to be back on stage with all of you. Are you ready for the questions and answers session? The voices are all right, Oskari and Sakari? Always ready. Despite the Aktia flu. Yeah, Aktia flu. Yeah. Now we're happy to answer your questions. We have some posted questions here that we got during the presentations. Let's start with the acceleration program. Aleksi and then, I suppose, Oskar can continue.
Can you once again talk us through the acceleration program and explain the logic with the run rate? Aleksi, please.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Oscar. The program is truly designed to accelerate the transformation we are into to become a leading wealth manager and then, at the same time, benefiting the banking heritage we have and combining these services to a unique way to our customers, especially those customers where we really see where the growth is. And that is premium private banking, SME, and institutions. Obviously, we do business with many other segments as well, but these are the segments we really see the growth. And the program launch is very important, and that will enhance, that will accelerate the chains. And hence, the key metric being the run rate that we are able to quantify the development in the right way.
Yeah, Sakari, you can reiterate the logic of the run rate, obviously.
Yeah, sure. I think it's important. Let's take a step back and think why do we do it this way? Why do we focus on run rate? In banking, like in many other industries, but especially banking, there are so many different variables that affect how we sort of how our reported financials pan out in a given year. If the rate curve changes, it has a massive impact on us. When you do active initiatives and actions, the actual impact is easily lost if you just follow it afterwards. Okay, I'm losing my mic.
That's okay.
What we want to do here, we want to be very, very clear that once we push these initiatives through a very systematic process, we say, okay, now this initiative is up and running.
We have a new product or a new service. It is creating top line. At that point, we sit down and say, okay, with these volumes, these pricings, what is the financial impact we expect this to generate for the next 12 months? It is just to also focus our mind on the financial impact and focus our mind even more when we have to come and explain to you every six months how this run rate is actually developing. But that is at the core. We focus on actions and the financial impact of those actions.
Thank you very much, gentlemen. Then let's go to the questions here on site. I can see that Jakob Hesslevik, from SEB has the microphone in his hand. Please go on.
Good afternoon, everyone.
If we start on the profitability target of 15%, Sakari, you mentioned earlier that we are leaving a different interest rate environment behind us and that you will still reach above 15%, which is quite ambitious, I would say. Do you have a specific policy rate target in mind when you look at 2029 levels? Do you expect it to be a 1%, 2% policy rate?
Yeah, not exactly. I think the only thing we can do is that we can focus on what the rate curve is telling us today, and it is still relatively flat for the next five years. It has been so for the last months, so underlying our long-term targets and reaching them is the rate levels around as they are today.
And then you also have to take the capital into consideration as well when you look on the ROE component.
Your updated targets today is 200-400 basis points above the CET1 requirement. Should we expect it to be on the midpoint level, 300 basis points, when calculating 15%, or is it at the upper end at 400?
I think we, as I said, we would be expecting in a normal situation, in a normal year, to operate towards the upper end, more towards the 4%. I think today we are not too far from it. I think the CET1 level, today we're quite happy with. It can still grow. And obviously, once we generate growth, we will generate more equity and hence create capacity to do investments.
If I may just add, thank you, Sakari. The 400 basis points, above translates roughly to 12.5%, in quarter one. And as we said, we are at the 12%, at the moment.
So, we are not far away from the higher end of the new band, so to speak.
Perfect. That's very clear. If we also look on the commission income line, you expect it to grow by 5%, per year and to reach EUR 20 billion, already by 2027. Just to be very clear, I mean, these CAGRs are 7%, until 2027, and it's a 9%, no, sorry, 12%, CAGR between 2027 and 2029, to reach the EUR 25 billion. Is this completely organically you're going to reach it, or does it include any inorganic acquisitions in order to boost the AUM base?
Aleksi, please.
Yeah, all of the numbers we presented here are organic. So, just to put it as simply as that. So, we haven't included any forms of anything else than just our own doings and winning the market. And yes, they are ambitious.
Maybe just to add, I think it's important to note this distinction between the gross and net. Like I explained, I mean, we're reporting EUR 14 billion, of net AUM. Now, when we move into reporting both gross and net, the gross is already higher. It's about EUR 16.2 billion. And importantly, once we generate net inflows that affect both funds and funds of funds, of course, the AUM growth, will be accelerated. So, the gross number is actually, and Kati, is much better to explain, is a little bit more sensitive, or you get the growth to accelerate more as you, I wouldn't call it double counting, but you get a double effect.
But will you also focus more on equities compared to historically fixed income as the equity market has historically always grown quite a bit faster, which would help you reach these CAGR numbers?
Kati, please. Yes, thank you.
As I said, we are aiming to lift the bar across all asset classes and products, and definitely equities play an important role in our Active Wealth Management offering going forward as well. And as you said, it's an important driver of the overall AUM and market growth, as we believe the same way.
And on your final question before I let everyone else ask, on your offering within wealth management, you talked quite a bit about alternative investments today. Will you offer, what type of asset classes will it be? Will it be Equity Nexus or through partners, IE P investments, or is it rather real estate REIT funds, or what type of alternative investments are you looking at?
Yes. Currently, our alternative investments offering consists of evergreen solutions, semi-liquid structures, as I mentioned, the multi-manager Aktia Alternatives fund, for example.
And also, we do have some semi-liquid real estate funds and also four closed-end funds that we have set up, mainly focusing in, I would say, both energy infra and also opportunistic credit. What we want to do going forward is to expand so that we have the offering across different asset classes within the alternative spectrum and also developing an evergreen product offering so that we can then provide the diversification and return potential uplift for all of our strategic segments.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jakob. And then let's continue with a question that was posted online by Jacob's colleague, Andreas Håkansson from SEB. Kati, to grow the AUM to 25 billion, how much performance do you expect per annum compared to flow?
We have in the numbers, we have for the first year, 5.3-point, market growth and going forward 4%, market growth embedded in our estimation.
But obviously, as Sakari said, as with the interest rate curve, same is with the market valuation. So, five years, it can have a different type of investment environments. But on average, this is what we are expecting.
Thank you very much. And then I suppose, yeah, you have already passed the microphone. Jakob, you're right, and SEB.
Yeah, Finnish version from my colleague, Jacob. So, Jakob here from the same bank. Generally speaking, I didn't notice or hear too much mentions regarding M&A in your presentation. What kind of role M&A will play during your strategy period? And are you looking at any kind of opportunities out there? And with the M&A, I also mean possible divestments. Could you consider divesting any smaller units, for example, just to improve the capital efficiency? Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. It's a good question.
First and foremost, I start by saying that this is an acceleration growth program, organic one. And we put a lot of effort to really do things in a better way. Obviously, we can't rule out any inorganics. However, everything we do starts with organic work. And then for the inorganics, we have our eyes open and we'll analyze different possibilities when they come. And it might obviously be both sides acquiring or divesting something. All in all, we pay a lot of attention to how the capital is deployed for volume growth and lending for other capital-like businesses, etc., in order to really be efficient and profitable, targeting the ROE, above 15%.
Good, thanks. And then a bit more detailed one on the IT systems that you have in place. And you mentioned the future development over there.
How happy you are with the current core systems that you have in different units? What is their kind of status in order to be prepared for the future development? Do you have to still touch on the old system or the existing systems, or will the future development be kind of on top of the current platforms that you have?
Thank you. I think Oscar will give this question to Oskari.
Yeah, hey, thank you. That's a good question. So, like I said, that Aktia is among the few banks that has really upgraded our core banking system. So, we have a pretty modern core banking system. But like I said, that we need investments in other areas like in life insurance and wealth management to really secure the foundation for the coming years and the operational reliability and efficiency.
I see that these kind of investments to the foundation, so they will be kind of, so they will be emphasized on the first years of the strategic period. And then going forward to the latter years, we will invest more in innovation and kind of improving the business.
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you very much. And then let's take a couple of questions posted online. And Kati, Petri Vähämäki asks, how do you ensure that you take your alternative product sales to a new level? I understand that recently sales have been lagging behind. Would you like to comment?
Of course. First of all, in every strategic segment, we have set ourselves a new, renewed, structured, systematic service model. That is one thing. Secondly, we have set ourselves very ambitious sales targets and also a way to monitor those targets actually within that acceleration program.
Thirdly, our development of our offering obviously is crucial. We need to future-proof our offering also in the alternative space. We have come this far by now, and now we are taking another leap towards the future. And definitely, as I said before, building both evergreen product offering and closed-end product offering so that we have a more broad-based offering overall in the alternative space.
Thank you. Then the nickname Nuori Sijoittaja, which translates into young investor, asks, your AUM growth, CAGR, between 2014 and 2024 has been +3%. How do you plan to make this new target, EUR 25 billion, meaning 12%, CAGR happen?
The answer is almost the same as to the previous question. I look towards the future, and we have set ourselves a very good systematic way of servicing different strategic segments. And that is a shift from what we had before.
And secondly, we have very ambitious sales targets, and we have a good, solid, concrete plan to reach those targets. And then again, we need to future-proof our product offering overall. So, we need to have the offering for different segments, the core segments that we are servicing, so that it is a tempting one. And together with the banking and insurance service and products that we are offering, we are very confident that we have the active wealth management setup in place, and now it's just about the execution.
Thank you. And then I suppose we have more questions here from the audience. Sauli Vilén, interested.
Yes, thank you. I guess this is mainly for Aleksi, Kati.
What do you see has been the core issue for, let's say, during your previous strategic period or so, that your net sales in asset management has been lagging so heavily behind your closest peers? Your product range should have been top fit for the market environment during the past three years or so. So, what has been like the why you haven't been able to grow before?
Thank you, Sauli. I think for me, it's somewhat difficult to judge. I've been here for a few months now, and what has happened in the past is there. Probably Kati can, you've been a bit longer, now almost a bit more than a year. Obviously, if we look at the flows in the latter part of last year, we saw quite big net redemptions from a few individual large institutional clients.
That dialogue was very collaborative dialogue and related to the allocation shifts they made in the Finnish market and so on. So, there was nothing dramatic in a way in those allocation shifts. So, that was one thing. But Kati, could you elaborate further?
Well, my analysis is twofold. First of all, as we service the biggest institutions, and actually half of our AUM approximately comes from the institutional segment. It comes with big tickets oftentimes, and then it comes with the allocation changes. And it's not about, how do I say, the quality of the product or performance per se. It is another reason oftentimes. And as we discussed in the Q4 presentation, we didn't lose any clients. We are just servicing our clients in their needs when they have to make those allocation changes.
Another thing is that actually, if you look back a couple of years, we have seen an interest rate shift, and with that shift, actually, if you think about our spearhead products, Emerging Market Debt, the value proposition compared to the very low yield interest rate environment, it's different when the interest rate rises, so it's natural that institutions then revise their fixed income strategies, and make those allocation changes, so I think these are the two things. It's not about the quality of the product. It's not about how we service, even though, for example, in the institutional segment, as I said, we have revised the model, and I'm very confident that now we have a good model and now we have a more systematic way, also targeting the KPIs, as I said, the activity, winning the RFPs and so forth.
It is a little bit different setup that we are now utilizing, so I look forward to the future.
Okay, thanks, then continuing about the alternatives, we all know how slow it is to ramp new business up in this field, and especially in alternatives, so could you maybe shed some more light on what kind of plans you have for ramping up the alternatives for the next level? Obviously, your current range is kind of narrow, you could say, and especially the in-house products, it will take a ton of time before you get a decent-sized fund, so are you maybe trying to increase it through partnering or maybe some smaller bolt-on M&As, or what is the plan there?
Yes, first of all, maybe I start with that we acquired Taaleri, and as we did that, we actually gained good knowledge and people who are aware of alternative investments.
So, we have the capabilities, so now we are building on top of that, as I said. We have the alternative AUM, and it is shifting towards Aktia Alternatives AUM as we go to the future, but as you said, it is a journey that we will see throughout the strategy period. It's not the overnight experience, but on top of that, I would highlight the evergreen product range. We actually have good product, multi-manager, multi-strategy evergreen currently, and we will develop that going forward and then obviously look at all the possible opportunities, how we can develop, how we can build those strategies going forward, but we have made ourselves a very, how do I say, exact product roadmap for the forthcoming two years, and we will follow that and we will expand in this area.
Okay, thanks then final on me. I didn't notice the employee NPS number.
You just mentioned that you want to improve it. Can you give us the employee NPS?
Yes, sure. Yes, sure. It's 19. It was 19 during last autumn.
Many thanks. That's all from me.
Thank you, Sauli. Before we have Antti Saari, one question, because it was quite close to one of the topics that you and Kati already were talking about. Petri Vähämäki is asking, what's the status of the Taaleri collaboration?
It's a very good collaboration. We have a collaborative agreement with Taaleri, and we are on our way of launching new products, and it's a very good dialogue. Obviously, we have the AUM that Taaleri, is helping us to manage, and it's a good partnership.
Thank you. I may remind you that you are still able, you can still post questions online and, of course, ask here on site.
But then I suppose it's you, Antti Saari from OP, I guess. Yeah, you have the mic, please.
Yes, thanks for taking my question. We haven't talked much about lending today, but you mentioned that you want to improve your market position in private banking, premium clients, SME, and at least premium and SME are clients that usually have loans. So, are you expecting that your market share in lending is growing similarly as you expect it to grow in asset management?
Thank you, Antti. I think this one is for you, Anssi.
Yes, we are expecting growth in SMEs and especially in premium and private banking segment and also in lending. And actually, at the moment, we have grown heavily in hire purchase leasing and factoring products in SMEs, and we are going to continue in that path. So, we are expecting growth in that segment, definitely.
Yeah, that's the case. We are going to grow. Thank you.
But not similarly with asset management market share?
The main thing is that we are growing in number of customers. And as my colleagues have told, that we are gaining, we have heavily put in focus on asset management, AUM, and obviously those clients have also that side of balance. So, the main focus is in asset management, but we are also growing in lending in those particular customers.
Partly related to this, now you are expecting your net commission income to grow above 5% annually, and asset management is, of course, the most important part of it, but only one part of commission income. So, what kind of growth have you calculated in for other parts of commission income, for example, lending-related fees or payments or etc.?
We have calculated in our business case, so to speak, similar type of growth also in corporate banking and also in premium and private banking segments.
Sakari, would you like to elaborate on the income mix? Are we happy with that?
Well, I don't think we are particularly ready to discuss in too much detail how the income mix is going to look, but the growth comes more from the wealth management side, but also from a typical banking commission income lines will grow, but perhaps a little bit more weighted towards the wealth management.
Okay, and final one from my side. Your acceleration program, did I understand it correctly that it's basically purely top-line growth? So, you haven't calculated in much savings measures into that?
Aleksi, please.
Thank you, Antti. I can take that. As we saw on this slide as well, it's primarily a growth program.
The six main streams that were stated on green, they were growth parts. Obviously, we do look at various ways of enhancing the way we work, operational efficiency, IT, and also cost side. But if we balance, this is a growth program, accelerated growth program.
At this date, the best estimate for your cost development would probably be somewhere around the inflation rate, or?
We have not, in our outlook, given any specific cost guidance. What we can say is that what we looked at in the past, we have actually been very cost-conscious. Our cost level has been below the inflation level many years in the past. Last year, the personal costs actually declined 5%, year on a year. In that sense, we are very cost-conscious. That's our nature, how we develop the business.
Okay, thanks. That's all from my side.
Thank you very much. And then let's continue with a question from the listener online. Ville is asking, how does this strategy differ from the previous strategy? Would you, Aleksi, like to comment on that?
Yeah, I think this strategy period gives us a lot of success. It will focus on these customer segments we stated, and we will do a very different pace when it comes to the execution. And this program itself, as we described, is a biggest lever for that execution. So, it will be a different pace with our business.
Thank you. Do we have more questions here on site? Olav Uppgård, please.
Thanks. We all know that market values are changing a lot when it comes to wealth management products. And that has a direct impact also, of course, on how the net commission income develops.
I was very happy to see that you have reached 8%, market share on wealth management and private banking, even though I guess some part of that is also the acquisition of Taaleri. I would be very interested to hear what is your target for the market share in a few years to come on this. Are your intentions to grow with the market or more than the market?
Thank you, Olav. Kati, would you like to answer? Anssi.
Obviously, we would like to beat the market. We would like to grow faster than the market. Obviously, that's our target. And that's what we have done, especially in premium and private banking customers, as you mentioned. So, we have grown faster than the market in that segment. And obviously, that's our target to do that. Thank you.
Sorry, I thought I had closed that one, but my telephone.
As I recall, I stated here also earlier, the challenges for Aktia have not been lack of good wealth management products. There have been very good products for quite some time, quite some years. My feeling is that the challenges have more been for private banking, for instance, to successfully sell these products, actually. I think you have touched this subject here already, but could you still a little bit elaborate on that one and how you managed that to reach your goals?
So, Anssi, would you like to continue on the topic of private banking sales?
Definitely. And as I mentioned, and Aleksi mentioned before, we are already the most active player in the town. And that's regarding the latest EPSI Rating. So, Aktia is the most active one, and we are going to continue in that path to be the most active one.
We are going to give the most personalized service to our customers. That's the medicine that we are going to take and going forward to that direction. The most active one and the most personalized service in town, that's the thing what we are going to do.
Finally, an IT question. Roughly speaking, how much of the coming years' IT investments are kind of regulatory-related and how much is business-related? Are you able to comment on that?
Oskari.
I think that it's a bit hard to give an exact figure on the proportion of the regulatory-related investments. So, there is new regulation that we need to take into account, and it will be a kind of a significant or substantial portion of the investments, but I can't at this point give an exact figure.
Okay, thanks on my behalf.
Thank you, Olav.
When we're talking about private banking, we have a question online from a nickname JJ, who's asking, in the future, what is the minimum investment that is required to get to private banking level? Would you like to tell something about the democratizing of private banking?
We are providing private banking-level service to customers with a few hundred thousand euros of assets under management. That we are capable to do, and we are going to continue to do that. That's the level. There is no certain amount, what's the exact amount, but roughly that.
Thank you. I think that we have a question for Jaakko Tyrväinen.
Yes, thank you. Just a follow-up. Could you describe the recent trends in the fee margins in asset management or wealth management that you have seen lately?
In your growth plan and the targets, are you kind of assuming unchanged margins going forward? Of course, by margins, I mean apples-to-apples produ cts.
Kati, I think you are the best to answer this one.
Kati, you are very popular today, so go ahead.
Happy to answer. Yes, as I mentioned, obviously the margin pressure is here, and we are expecting it to continue. If I'm thinking about kind of as-is scenario, if we wouldn't do anything, we are expecting in all of our strategic segments margin to decline. That is why we are more actively now building our product offering, as I mentioned, bringing new initiatives in. Also, as we mentioned, actually in the Q4, as a good example, I would say, in Q4 reporting, we mentioned that we launched in the last quarter last year the ETF discretionary portfolio management product family.
I think that is a good example of how we can think about things in a new way. Previously, these clients invested in 100%, ETF allocations. And now they are investing equity part through the ETF product offering, and then the fixed income is the active fixed income funds that we offer. And with this, we can already increase the margin of this particular product by 30%. So, these types of things, and this comes also about the, how do I say, scalability of the products. It's not that every banker has different types of portfolios for each client, but we build these types of scalable solutions that fit our clients' needs, and then we can have time to service the clients and have that Aktia experience in place.
Okay, excellent. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Jacob Hesslevik, please.
J ust one more question.
So, during the past year, I mean, lending has not really accelerated, which has resulted in your RWAs, being quite flat compared to a year earlier. Basically, I have a two-part question. First of all, do you expect lending growth to accelerate during this year? If not, I mean, you will be quite overcapitalized already by Q4 2025, and given your new policy or updated distribution target, do you prefer to do extra dividend or to do a buyback? And how do you resonate regarding those two options?
So, Anssi, if you could answer the first part of the question, and then Aleksi or Sakari, you may continue.
Yes, the lending market in Finland, especially in mortgages, has been extremely slow during this year and the past year, and also SME lending. And Aktia has been always a conservative lender, especially in the corporate side.
That's one reason we are part of the society, as I mentioned before, and part of the market. But this year, there is a bubbling under, so to speak. If the market booms or starts to move, we are ready there, and then we are going to grow if the market is growing. But we are going to keep our risk levels and our pricing levels. That's highly important to us. But let's see about the market. But in the corporate side, it's looking relatively good.
Thank you. Then concerning the excess capital, I saw two hands, so. Go ahead. Aleksi, Sakari, please.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, like Anssi said, I mean, we continue to be a bank. We have a growth program. Of course, as part of these initiatives, we also expect that we will increase lending.
We necessarily don't see a situation in the very near quarters where we would be excess capitalized. To the question of which one we prefer, that is something that we keep our options open. And once the situation arises, we will make the decision whether it should be dividends or share repurchases.
Yeah, and just to add, as we stated, 200-400 basis points buffer, and that translates to 12.5, roughly, where we see that that is more or less of a good balanced position to be, considering all these. And we are not that much far away in there.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Do we have any further questions here on site? No questions online. It seems that that was the last question for today.
Many thanks for the active discussions, and many thanks to all of you both who have participated here on site and those of you who have followed us online. We wish you all a very good end of the week. See you again. Thank you and goodbye.