Good morning. We welcome you to this earnings call for the second quarter financials of Arion. My name is Benedikt Gíslason. I'm the CEO of Arion. With me here today to present the second quarter results is Ólafur Hrafn Höskuldsson, our CFO. Please feel free to submit your questions during this presentation, which will be followed by a Q&A session, as we've done in previous earnings calls. It's fair to say that this was a solid quarter with good momentum in most areas of the business, particularly asset management, card services, and loans. One of the factors affecting return on equity in the period was an administrative fine following an inspection by the FSA in the summer of 2022 of the bank's measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The FSA inspection revealed shortcomings in the bank's practices.
We took these findings with the utmost seriousness and undertook a comprehensive review of our practices. We have now significantly reinforced our money laundering defenses by enhancing our systems and expanding our AML team, which performs this vital role. If it hadn't been for this settlement, the bank's ROE would have been 12.7% in the second quarter and closer to our financial target of 13%. The quality of earnings in this quarter is well reflected in the core operating income versus risk exposure amount, which comes in at 7.3%, above our financial target of 7.2%. This target was first introduced in 2019 when our focus shifted to capital velocity and better use of capital deployed in our business. Loan growth only partially reflects our credit activity.
This is likely to become the fourth year where around 4% of the corporate loan book could be expected to be syndicated to third parties through acting as an intermediary rather than a direct lender. The insurance business also performed well, with income growing by 12.8% in the second quarter. We also posted positive financial results despite the fact that the largest single claim in the company history was made during the period, with the participation of reinsurers dampening the impact of the claim and also impacting returns of the business, was that the investment portfolio continued to have low returns. Excluding the administrative fine, the cost-to-core income ratio came in at 42.8%, well above our 45% target. And finally, the bank is strongly capitalized, with Tier 1 capital at 18.5%, or 330 basis points above the statutory minimum.
Our capital optimization plan continued in this last quarter with ISK 4.5 billion of buybacks conducted and a new ISK 2.5 billion share buyback program launched on the publication of second quarter results. Our focus on running a reliable business and providing outstanding financial services with convenient digital services at the forefront has resulted in Arion Bank having been named the Bank of the Year in Iceland for the last three years by The Banker. In addition, Euromoney recently named Arion as the Bank of the Year in Iceland for 2024 and as Iceland's number one digital bank. This mirrors the results of a survey conducted by Maskína in June, which revealed that bank customers in Iceland rated the Arion app the best banking app in Iceland for the eighth year in a row now.
We are, of course, grateful for this positive response to our efforts, and it inspires us to do even better in the future. Other highlights for the first half and are worth mentioning is the 10% growth in asset under management. Asset under management exceeded ISK 1,500 billion for the first time. Now, compared to our balance sheet, is close to 90% or close to being the size of our own balance sheet, or 97%. Activity in our corporate investment banking continues to be strong, and we are involved with all major activities in that front. To reflect a little bit better on the insurance bank insurance progress, you can see here on this slide that the bank insurance ratio continued to trend up and are in line with our financial targets for the year.
It was particularly good to see how this cooperation between Arion and Vörður is reflected in sales growth to individuals through the Arion sales team, which was 47% year-over-year. Our leadership in capital markets continues. Now, this slide, we have never presented a detailed timeline of our property development assets before. I think it's important to note that we're making good progress on both fronts. The Arnarland project is smaller in nature, a nine-hectare property development area where it's estimated that 530 apartments will be built and a commercial property. Our book value reflects an overall value of ISK 1.5 billion with us owning 51% stake. As this is coming to a complete when it comes to planning process, we expect to explore monetizing this asset later in the year. The Blikastaðir project is a more comprehensive and extensive one.
It's the largest property development area in the capital and is in three phases. The first phase is effectively, as you can see from the timeline, a year behind the Arnarland project. There we continue to work extensively with the local municipality on the planning process, both the overall planning and the district planning, and expect the first phase to be finalized towards the end of next year. Here we continue to explore some of the options that we presented in our capital markets day in March. I think it's worth mentioning as well that obviously when these two areas come into development or construction, it will help ease the shortages of supply in the housing market considerably. My final slide here before turning over to our CFO, who will go in details through the numbers, is on the economy, which is clearly slowing down.
We're seeing leading indicators clearly pointing into that direction. I think the economic data that the central bank is probably observing closest now, apart from obviously the mostly CPI numbers, is the labor market, which is now showing early indications of cooling off a bit. I think it's worth mentioning that, for example, the tourist industry, which employs around 20,000 workers, is experiencing somewhat slower growth or even a slight decrease in demand. We should expect sort of particular cooling in that area when it comes to the labor market. I think it's also worth mentioning that Statistics Iceland changed the way it measures the housing component in the CPI in June, making it more harmonized with the way that European and Western world countries do it.
We expect to see less volatility in the CPI numbers going forward on the back of this, as we've stopped effectively calculating what's been referred to as investment returns of housing. So I think it's hard to predict when we will see policy rates easing. But based on the leading indicators, I think it's fair to assume that we will see policy rates starting to move lower towards the end of the year with two policy rate meetings in October and November. And with that, I'm going to hand over to Ólafur .
Thank you, Benedikt. Good morning. Now looking more closely at the results for the quarter, and starting with the key highlights as I usually do. Overall, a good solid quarter where core earnings drivers, key core earnings drivers for our business, like Benedikt mentioned earlier, were all showing good positive momentum. The headline ROE of 11.5% is below our 30% target. But as Benedikt outlined, this is primarily because of the one-off ISK 0.6 billion settlement fine that was outlined earlier. Without this fine, the ROE for the quarter would have been just below our target of 12.7%. A key positive in the quarter was the strong results for our fee-generating business, which had an unusually subdued first quarter of the year. Asset management, cards, and lending fees all contributed to a strong period in terms of fee generation.
Net interest margin is also holding at a strong level at 3.2%. The ongoing resets of the fixed-rate mortgage portfolio is starting to have a positive effect on our margin. This will accelerate for the second half of this year. Finally, and of course, always very importantly, our capital funding and liquidity position remains very robust. We are continuing our capital optimization commitment by launching the ISK 2.5 billion buyback program of shares today. Now looking more closely at the income statement, total operating income in the quarter was ISK 16.6 billion, which is up 14% from the first quarter. Again, these are driven by our core income lines. Net interest income increased by 6%, and net commission income increased by 18%. Insurance service results were also solid in the quarter at ISK 0.5 billion, with a combined ratio below 90%.
Financial income was again subdued in the quarter. During the quarter, we did tender a senior bond in euros, which was maturing at the end of the year. We had a one-off cost in the financial income line of around ISK 500 million. But this will be countered for the remainder of the year through lower interest expense. Operating expenses increased by 9% between quarters. Primarily, this is driven by the settlement fine mentioned earlier. Impairments were then somewhat up from the previous quarter at ISK 0.8 billion, which represents a cost of risk of around 28 basis points in line with our previous guidance. And then again, we had the high effective tax rate in the quarter of 32.5%, which is impacted by the settlement expense, which is not tax deductible and therefore explains the high effective tax rate.
Net profit in the quarter of ISK 5.5 billion, which then takes the net profit for the year to ISK 10 billion. Now looking more closely at some of the key income statement items and starting with net interest income. Net interest income was ISK 11.9 billion, which is up from ISK 11.2 billion at the end of the Q1 for Q1. And the net interest margin, as mentioned, increased to 3.2% of interest-bearing assets. As mentioned earlier, we had this year started a new phase in the rate hiking cycle where our fixed-rate mortgage portfolio began to reset. This is a tailwind for our NIM and especially for the second half of this year. In the first half, we have seen just under ISK 15 billion of mortgages resetting, while we have ISK 45 billion of mortgages resetting in the second half of the year.
On the other hand, we had a negative impact in the quarter from the increase of the central bank of the interest-free reserve requirements from 2%- 3%. This effectively lowers our interest income from our liquidity reserves by around ISK 200 million per quarter. So fees, as discussed, are strongly up this quarter following an unusually subdued first quarter of the year. This is pleasingly driven by a broad-based increase in most of our fee-generating businesses. Asset management, for example, had a strong quarter with ISK 1.3 billion in fees. Assets under management, as Benedikt mentioned earlier, increased sharply by ISK 75 billion during the quarter, representing a 10% increase in assets under management. We also saw strong activity on the lending side, both on the retail and corporate side, contributing to lending fees of just under ISK 1.2 billion.
Card fees also picked up during the quarter to just under ISK 700 million. As discussed in Q1, I need to mention that the comparison between years is slightly impacted by the closure of the Keflavík Airport branch and the reclassification of card insurance fees at Q1 this year. Combined, these two items contributed to ISK 220 million in fees for the second quarter last year. Looking at insurance service results, we continue to see very positive momentum. Revenue growth continues to be strong, and revenues increased by 13% year-over-year, which is in line with its growth trajectory over the past years. Also, very importantly, we are seeing very good traction in terms of new sales, where, for example, new sales to individuals were up 30% between years.
Claims were impacted during the quarter, as Benedikt outlined, primarily by a single event, a fire in a shopping center in Reykjavík. The current estimate is that the net loss after reinsurance for Vörður is around ISK 270 million. We continue to evolve the bank insurance cooperation and identifying synergies within the group. This contributes to another quarter where the cost ratio is below 20%. The combined ratio in the quarter was therefore 89.4% and 93.6% for the first six months of the year. Now looking at total operating expenses, which include the operating expenses from the insurance business. Total operating expenses in the quarter were ISK 8 billion, which are, of course, impacted by the ISK 585 million settlement fine. If we exclude this item, growth year-over-year is 9% compared to around 7% inflation during this period.
Included in the salaries line is a one-off impact of around ISK 100 million, which relates to the fact that recent union wage agreements were backdated to February. Then the monthly increase in salaries from these agreements is estimated at around ISK 120 million per quarter for the group. In general, the theme is similar to before. We continue to manage expenses conservatively while maintaining our investment commitment in key business areas, which we, of course, outlined in our capital markets day in March. Now moving on to the balance sheet and starting with the loan book, which grew by 2% or ISK 24 billion during the quarter. Out of the total growth in the quarter, ISK 8.4 billion is the result of inflation impact on our CPI-linked loan book. Despite the high interest rate environment, we do continue to see solid lending opportunities in the market.
Our capital and liquidity position allows us to be opportunistic in this market. Clearly, this is a continuously evaluated scenario along with the evolving economic environment, and we will continue to manage loan growth dynamically. The loan book continues to be very well balanced: 48% mortgages, 5% other loans to individuals, and 47% loans to corporates. Looking at the provisioning, total loss allowance at the end of the quarter is just under ISK 9 billion or 0.74% of the loan book. It should be noted that there was a reduction in Stage 2 loans to individuals, which relates to mortgages in Grindavík. These loans have been transferred to an SPV co-owned by the Icelandic State, and this exposure is now classified at fair value. In general, apart from the specific exposures related to Grindavík, the theme is very similar to what I've outlined in previous calls.
We are seeing an uptick in non-performing loans, which is to be expected in the current rate environment. We, of course, continue to monitor this evolving market backdrop and work with our clients proactively. While the overall position of non-performing loans is still, from a historical perspective, relatively comfortable, clearly, the longer the current rate environment persists, this will impact our clients to a greater extent. We continue to see through the cycle expected loss of the loan book of 20-25 basis points through the cycle. In the next 12 months, we see this as being slightly higher or around 29 basis points based on the current loan book composition. In terms of deposits, deposits grew strongly in the quarter by ISK 45 billion or 6%. Total deposits now stand at ISK 847 billion, representing just under 62% of total liabilities.
As we have discussed previously, our strategy has been very clear in this regard, and we have focused on being competitive in terms of stable categories of deposits. We have highlighted in the top right chart of this page that the growth over the past year has been in these categories. Moving on to wholesale funding, a key positive, of course, recently has been the continuous strong trend in our funding spreads, and these have continued this quarter. This was again evident in our Euro Senior Preferred issue, which we completed in the quarter, which was the tightest new issue for an Icelandic bank for close to 3 years and was more than 8x oversubscribed. The solid investor sentiment was then further supported when Moody's affirmed their A3 rating with a stable outlook during this quarter.
As always, we continue to manage our funding maturity proactively, utilizing our domestic ISK and Scandi markets along with euro and other currencies periodically. Looking at capital, our position continues to be very strong, common equity ratio of 18.5% or 330 basis points above the requirements. During the quarter, pleasingly, our Pillar 2 requirement was reduced by the regulator by 30 basis points to 1.8%. The leverage ratio, of course, continues to be very strong at just below 12%. The common equity position includes a foreseen dividend payment in line with our dividend strategy of 50% payout ratio and also includes the full ISK 2.5 billion buyback program, which we are launching today. Based on our management buffer target, we currently have surplus equity, therefore, of around ISK 10 billion-ISK 18 billion.
As highlighted before, we should mention that we have outstanding warrants of around 52 million shares, which are currently in the money. The last exercise window for these warrants is now in August. Should all these warrants be exercised, the surplus capital is estimated to increase by around ISK 6 billion. Related to this, we have also obtained the regulatory approval for a ISK 5 billion additional buyback program, which is conditional on the capital increase related to the utilization of the warrants. Finally, just quickly on the MREL position, we continue to be very robust in terms of MREL and currently have an over 10% buffer above requirements. So before I hand over to Q&A, just very briefly highlighting some of the key themes going forward. We conclude a solid quarter with very good momentum in all our key core earnings drivers.
We do remain committed to optimizing our capital position and are launching a new share buyback program today. And finally, our diverse businesses, our strong and mature market position in all key business units, combined with a very robust balance sheet in terms of liquidity, capital, and funding, means that we are in a very good position to navigate what continues to be an evolving external market environment. So thank you, and I would now like to welcome Theodór Friðbertsson to manage the Q&A session.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Before we start, I'd like to remind participants online that they can still submit questions through the platform. But as usual, I think we will start with the questions online. We have a couple of questions already. Number one is on the asset under management. Can you please comment a bit on the growth in asset under management, i.e., what are the key drivers?
Yeah. Now, since this first half hasn't been particularly good when it comes to investment returns, it's not a function of the returns. It's, I think, two components. The products that we own and/or service on the pension fund side continue to sort of enjoy strong influx. So there's sort of positive savings there. And then with Stefnir, which had a particularly strong quarter in terms of growing assets under management, it has to do with the recently announced initiative by Stefnir and participation of the pension funds of Heimstaden, the housing rental company, and demonstrates a new category of asset management with the group, focusing on the housing market. Very positive step. Yeah.
Then secondly, around the funding, we have a question about what are the funding ambitions in the next few quarters, especially on the senior and subordinated levels.
Yeah. I think it's very pleasing that we have a very solid market in terms of funding, especially in the FX markets currently. And we have a senior bond, Euro Senior Bond, that is maturing for the second half of next year. And we have a call date in AT1, the first half of next year. And we are now looking at these markets and will be optimistically looking at issuing potentially. No decision yet on the call on the AT1, but clearly the market dynamics are strong. Yeah. And I think it's worth mentioning that during an event like that, we have obviously the opportunity of optimizing kind of the maximum allowance for these buckets of different capital instruments. So for example, for the AT1, we could issue an amount that is probably 25% higher than the outstanding amount to take full use of the AT1 bucket.
I believe that concludes the questions online. So we'll move on to the auditorium. Do we have any questions today? Yeah?
Comment on the CPI imbalance for the second half of the year, which is increasing with the rates aspiring on current loans and what impact could it have on the net equity market?
Can you maybe repeat the questions?
Yeah. So we had a question on the CPI imbalance, which is at ISK 150 billion at the end of June, if I remember correctly. And how we sort of project that to develop into the second half as kind of fixed rate markets has come to a reset. There is a clear trend with the refinancing activity taking place in the mortgage market that borrowers at least partially opt in for CPI-linked mortgages. So we would expect this trend to continue. We're obviously looking at ways to manage the CPI imbalance in some way. And I guess it involves finding someone in our economy that is short the CPI and would want to exchange the CPI on a soft basis with a counterparty like ours. But there aren't many there, and this market isn't liquid. So I think it's fair to assume that this imbalance could grow, and it will bring us all, as I have explained in previous quarters in our couple of markets, it will increase the volatility of the quarterly earnings.
Yeah. I think there's probably not much to add on this. I think maybe we are, I mean, for a period, we saw CPI-linked being effectively the only product being on the mortgage side. I think we're seeing some move back to the non-CPI-linked. I think one thing to mention is, of course, that the borrowers that are resetting now, our borrowers that took a mortgage at 4.5%, 5% when they could have taken a mortgage at 1% CPI-linked at the time. So if there's a type of borrower that potentially is more likely to take a non-CPI-linked, I think in general, also our borrowers, the Icelandic borrower knows CPI-linked mortgages very well. The borrower and us as the bank, we know this product very well. It's a historical product in Iceland. So we know how to manage the net interest margin through this.
But we also know, I think there's also a willingness from the borrower side to mix this and take a portion when they can of non-CPI-linked. So I think over time, especially when rates start to come down, which hopefully happens like Benedikt outlined in the second half of this year, the mix will be moved back into a mix between CPI and non-CPI. But I think in the short term, we should be expecting the imbalance to increase.
Yeah. And to elaborate a little bit on the volatility that it brings, it's obviously a function of the real policy rates as well. So it depends on how the real policy rates come in over a particular quarter, what kind of impact this could have. So currently, the real policy rates are at close to 3%. So it depends a little bit on how that is recorded over the relevant quarter.
Yeah. And as we've been guiding, we also expect sort of more volatility when it comes to NIM relating to this. Because obviously, it's going to be more sensitive towards inflation development.
A good question. The first question that I get from the auditorium in many quarters. So thank you.
Any other questions? No. I guess that concludes the Q&A today. Thank you all for attending and have a great rest of the summer. Thank you.