AIB Group plc (ISE:A5G)
Ireland flag Ireland · Delayed Price · Currency is EUR
9.61
+0.21 (2.23%)
Apr 28, 2026, 4:35 PM GMT
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Earnings Call: Q1 2023

May 4, 2023

Operator

Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AIB Group PLC first quarter 2023 trading update conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one one on your telephone keypad. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Colin Hunt, CEO. Please go ahead.

Colin Hunt
CEO and Executive Director, AIB Group

Good morning, everybody. eight weeks ago, we presented AIB's full year results for 2022, and at that time, we gave an upbeat assessment of the outlook for this year. Today, we're delighted to see that positive outlook taking material form in the shape of our Q1 NIM. Our bigger and broader customer franchise is delivering strong results and is doing so against the backdrop of a robust economic performance here in Ireland. We are very pleased with the results we're sharing with you, as highlighted by the upgraded income and NIM guidance, with RoTE now expected to reach the high teens in 2023, materially exceeding our medium-term target. I'll stop at this point and hand the floor over to those of you on the call.

Operator

Dear participants, as a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone keypad. Now we're going to take our first question. The first question comes from line of Rahul Sinha from JPM. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Raul Sinha
Equity Research Analyst, JPM

Hello. Good morning. It's Rahul here. I don't know if you can hear me.

Colin Hunt
CEO and Executive Director, AIB Group

We can hear you loud and clear, Rahul. Good morning to you.

Raul Sinha
Equity Research Analyst, JPM

Morning. A couple of questions from me, please. The first one, just I guess we're still getting used to your conservatism. As you mentioned, we spoke eight weeks ago, the outlook for NII seems markedly more positive now. I was just wondering if you could break out for us sort of what's changed within your assumptions. It doesn't look like you're using a different rate assumption. Perhaps, you know, what has changed in terms of pass-throughs, in terms of your balance sheet composition that drives the uptick? That would be useful. The second one around capital, obviously a good print on CET1. I was just wondering if I could invite you to talk a little bit about the timing of the various big moving parts ahead this year.

In terms of the closure of the acquisitions, when you expect that, the timing of the stress testing and your stress process, when you expect that? Related to all of this, you know, the timing of any capital return discussion, just wondering if that is still likely to be at the end of the year, into early next year, or could it be slightly earlier? Thank you.

Colin Hunt
CEO and Executive Director, AIB Group

Thank you very much indeed. Well, I think that the outlook is the outlook today is obviously reflective of the actual performance in the first quarter of the year rather than an expected performance. I think it is fair to say that the group is performing ahead of what we regarded as optimistic expectations when we presented our results at the end of the year. You know, as we move through the year, you will inevitably get less forecast and more reality. Today's numbers are simply a reflection of what we have seen happening and what we see coming at us in terms of the emerging pipeline for the rest of 2023.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Yeah, just Donal here, Rahul. I mean, from my perspective, you know, in a fast-moving rate environment, with the passage of time, things become a little bit clearer. I think we're all a little bit more confident on the shape of the Euro curve. I think in terms of variability around balance sheet movements, we obviously were a first mover in our domestic market with respect to asset pricing. We're not entirely sure what competitors were going to do around that or react. I would say it has probably panned out slightly better than we expected. Obviously, being a first mover can create different outcomes. Overall, you know, we didn't see many redemptions.

Obviously, other players in the local market, acted quite rationally as well. Really between the end of Q4 and performance of Q1, that's probably the only balance sheet change. On the liability side, things remain very steady. Overall liability is pretty consistent from year-end to now. Haven't seen, despite the market volatility, changes in liability makeup, et cetera. Again, you know, our deposit base is predominantly a retail deposit base, very granular. Indeed that data is still the case. Putting all of this together, looking at the outlook for the Euro curve, gave us the confidence to upgrade our guidance for 2023. I think on the capital question, it's again, it's early days in the year.

We have the main block of work to conclude will be the onboarding of the Ulster Tracker portfolio, which will take place in June of 2023. The capital impact of that is already incorporated, but we would expect to have that closed in one shot by the half year. After that will be a balance sheet effective around EUR 5 billion of tracker mortgages. I think the Ulster Bank onboarding of the corporate and commercial deals is very, very fluid at the moment, and that's all going very much in line with plan. We really would hope to hit the half year with all of the inorganic items closed out on our balance sheets.

What that means for capital, I would say that our story here hasn't changed. We're really focused on 2023, ensuring that we manage our asset liability position very thoughtfully. Q1, obviously very strong. Throughout Q2, Q3, I think you can expect to see some more changes around asset and liabilities, just given the change in the interest rate environment. We're really focused on delivering a really strong return for 2023 for all our shareholders. In 2024 from 2023's profits, looking to utilize our existing dividend payout policy and indeed in the coming years, move towards that medium-term target.

Raul Sinha
Equity Research Analyst, JPM

Thanks so much.

Operator

Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. Please stand by. The next question comes through line of Diarmaid Sheridan from Davy. You're now need to open please ask your question.

Colin Hunt
CEO and Executive Director, AIB Group

Good morning, Diarmaid.

Diarmaid Sheridan
Research Analyst, Davy

Good morning. Sorry, I didn't hear my name being called there. Good morning, Colin. Good morning, Donal. I hope you're both well, and thank you for taking my question. Two if I may please. Just on a couple of Ruth's questions there, just the deposit beta that you're seeing. I think at full year, you talked about a 30% deposit beta as being kind of the assumption. What we're seeing to date, and certainly, you know, it's apparent from what you reported this morning that that isn't something that we're seeing.

Do you think that's a timing issue and that, you know, over time that that will migrate towards the 30, or do you think structurally just given the very high level of deposits in the Irish market, that that structurally is maybe a very conservative assumption at this point? Maybe secondly, just to pick up on the mortgage comments, Donal that you made, just in terms of your pricing at this point, do you feel comfortable with where you are? You know, I guess, you know, at full year you talked about being conservative just given some of the uncertainties in terms of credit underwriting. Is that still the case or, you know, are you a little bit more comfortable with where the market and the environment is at this point? Thank you.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Thanks very much, Diarmaid. I'll take the liability side. I think for the full year, I would have guided deposit beta less than 30%. I think we would still say that that is an appropriate number and being less than 30%. What you're going to see in Q2, Q3 is, I'd say more liability products being introduced by AIB targeted at different business customers or students or whether it's retail customers, all coming online. We'll just have to see really what the behavioral activity of the customers moving in between these different deposit products. I would say today's that moves in between the liability product has been low.

I think it's just due to the fact that rates have moved so quickly. I think that 2023 will see things settle down a little bit and become a little bit more normalized as we go through the year.

Colin Hunt
CEO and Executive Director, AIB Group

Yeah. Just in relation to the mortgage markets, Diarmaid, we have taken a very careful and measured approach to adjusting our pricing changes in official interest rate settings, and we will continue to do precisely that. In the first quarter of this year, we had a mortgage market share of 31%. Mortgage market share in terms of drawdowns is quite volatile at the moment and has been really since the back end of last year on a month-by-month basis. If you look at the 5 months since we announced we were changing our fixed rate back end of October, our mortgage market share over that period has been 33%. I'm quite happy with that.

As we look at the pipeline in terms of applications and approvals, far greater stability there than we're seeing in terms of actual drawdowns. That volatility in drawdowns is driven by a leading and lagging impact in terms of rate changes throughout the market by various competitors. We're very content with what we're seeing in terms of actual applications from our, from our customer base.

Diarmaid Sheridan
Research Analyst, Davy

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Now we're going to proceed to our next question. The next question comes from line of John Cronin from Goodbody. Your line is open. Please ask the question.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Good morning, John.

Operator

Excuse me, John. The line is open. Excuse me, John Cronin. The line is open. Would you like to ask a question?

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Okay. Let's move on to the next question, if we have one.

Operator

Yes, of course.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

We can go back to John.

Operator

Thank you. Now we're going to take the question. The next question. Just give me a moment. Now we're going to take the next question from Aman Rakkar from Barclays. Aman, your line is open. Please ask your question.

Aman Rakkar
Director of Banks Equity Research, Barclays

Morning, Colin. Morning, Donal. Yeah, I just had a question on probing around NII and NIM again. Clearly you're benefiting from a stronger run rate on NIM and NII than the prior guide and where the street is. Could you help us kind of just think about the shape of NIM or NII if there's too much noise in NIM, the kind of run rate for NII through the course of the year? I mean, you've got a number of moving parts, you know, rising deposit costs, maybe narrowing asset spreads, but also, you know, the rising structural hedge.

I guess I'm kinda trying to think about the shape of net interest income through the back end of this year with a view to seeing how much of this kind of NII run rate is sustainable into 2024. I guess the related question more broadly is this level of ROTE feels high and perhaps unsustainable, but, you know, the moving parts around income and costs suggest that actually you're likely to operate at quite a high ROTE for a number of years here. What's your view about, you know, the level of ROTE that you're set to do now versus a more sustainable level? And do you...

Is this conservatism that you're giving us, or actually is there scope for, you know, for us to come up with upgraded targets and guidance at H one? Thank you very much.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Thanks very much, Aman. Donal here. I think what we're seeing in Q1 and you're gonna see in Q2 is just that continued trajectory that we saw in 2000 coming from 2022. Obviously even pre 2022 and coming into 2022, you know, our balance sheet was very geared for rising rates. Okay? That was a very specific and deliberate position that we had that we had accumulated. Throughout 2022 and indeed for 2023, you're really just seeing all of that benefit coming through which is positive. Moving from me showing you sensitivity tables to me showing you actual actual prints.

I think really where you're going with that is, you know, once we accept that, where do we go from here? I mean, the underlying driver for this NIM was obviously a very quick move in official rates. I mean depending on your view on where rates go from here, I think the variability around that is narrowing quite significantly. The variability I would say is reducing quite significantly as well. I would say that the, you know, that kind of momentum that you've been seeing quarter and quarter is obviously going to slow down as rates have slowed down.

A lot of it will depend in the second half of the year on the way in which our customers, let's say, interact amongst the different types of liability products that we will bring online. Overall, we do think that the NII trajectory is gonna be very strong overall for 2023, albeit tapering towards the back end. I mean, there's so much variability still, particularly in the behavioral activity on the liability side. We're not saying giving guidance for 2024, 2025, other than to say, you know, that we're consensus currently is at the moment, looks about appropriate for 2024 and 2025.

That's all gonna become a lot clearer, I would say, in Q2 and Q3 as we get a better handle and understanding on those behavioral items. That's number one. Number two is obviously the fact that we benefited from the rise in rate environment was really due to the fact that we had a very short duration on our overall balance sheet. I would have mentioned at the year-end results that we have been slowly extending the duration of our balance sheet through the use of the structural hedge program. Indeed, that extension of duration, even from the year-end, has continued. We think that it will continue at least until June.

What we wanna do by increasing our structural hedge is, by adding duration, really putting a floor on the outer years with respect to RoTE returns to ensure that we can maintain a very strong RoTEs in the coming years, to allow for a clear pathway for shareholder returns.

Aman Rakkar
UK and Ireland Banks Equity Research Analyst, Barclays

Thank you very much. I mean, it sounds like from what you're saying there that there's potential near-term additional upside on NIM from the moving parts, rate hikes. Actually towards the end of the year, you should expect actually that exit NIM to be a lot lower.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

I don't know if it would be a lot lower. It's, and it's, we're moving into the sphere of guesswork here, but I mean, one would reasonably assume in a higher rate environment with more liability deposit products that customers will choose to invest cash at different tenors for different rates. I think that that is a reasonable assumption. We're undoubtedly, Q4 last year, Q1, Q2, getting a large benefit just from the speed at which the official rates have risen and the fact obviously that 75% of our the asset side of our balance sheet is effectively floating and immediately attracting those returns. I mean, if you look at consensus for 2024, 2025, I think kinda that's NIMs of 2.40, 2.50.

That would be very much where we would, that would seem like reasonable outcomes for us.

Colin Hunt
CEO, AIB Group

In terms of RoTEs, it's worth reminding ourselves that when we established that target, we established as a medium-term target of delivering a RoTE above 13%. We said when we delivered the results for 2022 that we would materially exceed that this year. We've put some numbers around that now, and we equally remain confident in our ability to exceed the 13% target in 2024 and 2025.

Aman Rakkar
Director of Banks Equity Research, Barclays

Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Now we'll proceed to the next question. The next question comes to the line of Chris Cant from Autonomous. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Chris Karn
Head of European Banks Strategy, Autonomous Research

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask about the sort of return trajectory, and I guess it links into the previous question around NII expectations into 2024/2025. Obviously, the positive surprise relative to your expectations for NIM is driving you to significantly upgrade your returns expectation for this year. What is it that you think brings that return path back down to target in the subsequent years? Is there any particular negative headwinds you're thinking about when you're assuming that the returns will deteriorate from quite a high level back towards your target looking into 2024/2025? Is it deposit betas catching up with you in the next couple of years? Is it cost pressure? What is it that you worry about? Or is it just conservatism? Thank you.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Hi, Chris. I think it's not the cost side. I think we've a reasonable amount of visibility on that. It's, you know, it's going to be around the behavioral side of the on the balance sheets on liabilities. You know, we've had such a benign rate environment for such a long period of time. It's hard for us to, you know, predict what behavior is going to be in the different, let's say, liability cohorts. There's obviously fewer banks in the Irish environment. I think everyone's a little bit sensitized over what happened with regional banks in the U.S. You know, the speed at which liabilities would have disappeared from various banks there.

I mean, we're in a really strong liquidity position with a really strong franchise, and we just want to maintain that position. It's just the variability, or the unknowns, around how customers are gonna interact on the liability side. I mean, in the U.S. and the U.K., obviously their rate hiking cycles started before they did in the Eurozone. Within the Eurozone, you know, we've certainly been slower on assets and liabilities on passing through rates. It's still quite early days. It's certainly too early to, you know, see any patterns emerging.

We do obviously think that as we introduce more liability products, that these are going to be taken up, and naturally then that's gonna increase, you know, the, the cost of liabilities. Notwithstanding the fact that we'll be taking actions on the asset side of the, of the balance sheet as well. It's just still a few unknowns. Overall, as we look to the year with the trajectory we have, we felt very confident in upgrading guidance for 2023.

Chris Karn
Head of European Banks Strategy, Autonomous Research

That's helpful. Thank you. I mean, I guess, essentially the concern you have is around beta development. Is it fair to say that your returns guidance, which is obviously unchanged for the outer years, is still based on the view of betas you had for your 22 results, whereas your guidance for 2023, you've had to change because the betas are playing out more favorably than you anticipated?

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

That's exactly, yes. We've actually, you know, we're assuming the same year-end position. It perhaps is just a bit slower to get there in the first quarter of the year.

Chris Karn
Head of European Banks Strategy, Autonomous Research

Right. Okay. No, got it. In terms of that beta, when I think about 3% LTV rates, I know you're talking in terms of betas, but what type of liability margin do you think is likely to be sustainable? You know, when I look at the U.K., for instance, over long periods of time, a circa 2% liability margin seems to be historical norm, when you're not around a 0 lower bound or indeed for your negative rates. Is that the sort of level we should be thinking about as kind of sustainable? If it's like a 3% ECB rate, you know, your beta making kind of 35% or something of that order of magnitude to get a circa liability margin.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Definitely not getting into product profitability on this call, other than to say, I think the makeup of our liability base, predominantly retail-focused, predominantly, kind of working current account, et cetera, et cetera. You know, that is the mainstay over liability base. That's obviously gonna be priced at a different level to, you know, six-month, two-year deposit products, particularly if they're targeted at wholesale versus versus other areas. I think what you'll see is more differentiation in the product types for different liquidity values. We'll just have to see what choices customers make along the way. That's all very much, I would say, emerging at the moment.

Obviously, U.K. rates are a little bit higher than they are in the Eurozone as well. I think that those kind of inferences will be a little bit easier to make towards the back end of the year.

Chris Karn
Head of European Banks Strategy, Autonomous Research

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Chris. Now we'll proceed to the next question. Just give us a moment. The next question will come to the line of Seamus Murphy from Carraighill. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Morning, Seamus.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Good morning. Is this me? Yeah. Sorry.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Yes. You, Willis. Yeah.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Yeah, sorry, I didn't get the name right. Sorry. I just wanted to ask two questions. I understand what you're saying in relation to deposit betas. We see that the deposit betas are running really, really low from the data we can see, like 5%, 6%, mid-single digit. We understand basically that's obviously leading to the NIM upgrade for this year. Absolutely fine. I suppose the bigger question I have is twofold then really is in terms of, in terms of protecting your RoTE guidance when we look into 2024 and 2025. It looks like you're in an ideal position because I think what Donal was trying to tell us all is that really it all depends on when you put on the structural hedge.

If we look at the duration of the hedge basically that you had coming into 2023, I think the duration of the new hedge was something like one and a half years, and we think you put it on at, like, 40 basis points or something like that. Obviously we're going to get that as a EUR half billion headwind into 2023, and obviously we get that rolling now. If we think, if I think, I suppose just asking the question, like the maximum size of the hedge, if I take off your fixed rate book basically from your, kind of your current accounts plus your et cetera, and your equity, I kinda get it at EUR 42 billion as the maximum size of the hedge.

The fact that you had a really short duration hedge coming to 2023, I suppose my question is, you're obviously trying to call peak rates to some extent in the Euro area, and when we see Euribor reverse, at some point you'll get the benefit of the hedge. That protects your NII into 2023 and 2024 and 2025, which means you make the RoTE guidance. I'm just trying to understand when the timing around the increase in size of the hedge. You mentioned you're limiting your balance sheet a small bit, but it was exceptionally short duration coming into 2023, and the base duration of the new hedge was only 1.5 at 40 basis points. That creates an incremental NII benefit into 2024 and 2025 on that basis, even allowing for pickup in the basis.

I just kinda, if you wouldn't mind just giving us some idea on your thoughts about the timing of the increasing of the hedge, how close we are to that. You talked about increasing the duration of the hedge now, and I'm just wondering, obviously, the duration, the new hedge was put on one and a half years. What's the new hedge duration now? Are we extending to three, four, five years? How that impacts NII into 2024 and 2025. I think incrementally it kind of gives us EUR 150 million a year. I'd just be interested in your thoughts around that in terms of structure of the balance sheet. Thank you.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Yeah. Good, good question. If like EUR 20 billion of hedges at the end of December 2022, I'd imagine that'll be in euros by the half year, that would be up around EUR 30 billion. You know, we've actually we're probably halfway there already, obviously with, you know, the euro curve being by and large in the medium term in around 3%, you know, that is bringing up the weighted average of the overall hedge. Throughout 2021, in particular, you know, just to manage interest rate sensitivity, as you say, we have been executing a lot of short-dated type of hedges which are rolling off in 2023.

2024, 2025, returns we think will be pretty well underwritten by more structural hedges with a longer duration which will take place for the rest of the second quarter. As opposed to doing short-dated tactical hedges, we'll probably look to do more five-year, six-year type of maturities. Call that a, you know, weighted average life of four or five years just to extend out those fixed rate durations. Because as you say, where we see, you know, EUR 5, 10-year rates at the moment, seems like a reasonable area to let's say normalize our interest rate sensitivity position.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

I suppose that underpins your confidence in around the RoTE guidance that Colin was talking about in terms of the guidance of the medium term. Because even allowing for the other aspects of the asset liability pricing, i.e. deposit features or your fixed rate, your new interest or your new pricing, you're basically underpinning NII once you extend the hedge. I suppose that's how I'm reading it, yeah.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Exactly that. Plus, I mean, we've got loan growth, you know, last year double digits.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Sure.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

This year it'll be 8%. You know, the outlook for business in Ireland, remains fairly robust as well. That's all supporting that outlook trajectory, and gives us the confidence to not only update the guidance now, but be very comfortable with RoTE even on the outer years.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Yeah. I suppose the obsession with peak NII in one sense is a bit irrelevant once we understand where we settle in NII in 2024 and 2025 in terms of the RoTE basically. That's probably the message you're trying to say here.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Exactly. That is the picture.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Yeah.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

that we're trying to paint here. You know.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Sure.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

if interest rates fall 2%, you know, You know, how detrimental could that be? I think it will be far less impactful on the go forward basis because we are

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Yeah.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

the duration of our hedges.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Excellent.

Seamus Murphy
Founder and Managing Director, Carraighill

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Yes, please just give me a moment. We will proceed to the next question. Now we're going to take the next question. The question comes from line of Rob Noble from Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Rob Noble
Banks Analyst, Deutsche Bank

Morning, all. Thanks for taking my questions. Are there any areas of the bank that you think are underperforming or maybe for want of a better word, that would benefit from increased investment? Is the high RoTE that you're printing now, is it a good opportunity to ramp investment into the business further? Then secondly, just on CRE, is there... I can see what you've written in the, in the report. Is there, is there any sign of stress anywhere in the U.K. or Ireland, be it office space from work at home or anything like that? Is there any sign of weakness that you can see at all, regardless of, like, how well it's covered? Is, is it a risk for the market overall? Thanks.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Okay. Thanks, Rob. Just in relation to investment, our approach is to invest in an asynchronous way through the cycle. We have been a very significant investor in going back, I suppose, eight years at this stage in relation to our technology, in particular our technology infrastructure, with a view to improving the quality of the customer interface. And you'll see further developments on that front as we move through the next number of months. Also in terms of underpinning our resilience, protecting us on the cyber side and in terms of improving the internal plumbing and wiring and allowing us to make better and faster decisions in the interests of our customers. We don't have any burning desire to significantly increase investment from here.

We're going to take the same long-term approach to investment as we've taken really, over the past, over the past number of years. In relation to CRE, you know, the LTV on the book is 51%. Certainly this is an area globally of increased focus and, it is, likely that we will see values coming back on foot of higher interest rates and higher yield demands. We're very comfortable with the quality of the book. It was very carefully underwritten on a very conservative basis over many, many years. We're very happy with how it's diversified geographically and how it's diversified across sectors.

There are no significant areas of concern for us. We, anticipating the valuation adjustment that I just referred to, we did take a significant PMA in the second half of last year, to ensure that we are comfortably and adequately provided for whatever occurs in the CRE market.

Chris Karn
Head of European Banks Strategy, Autonomous Research

Okay. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. Now we're going to proceed to the next question. Please stand by. The next question comes to line of Andrew Stimpson from KBW.

Andrew Stimpson
Head of European Banks Research, KBW

Morning, everyone.

Operator

Andrew, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Andrew Stimpson
Head of European Banks Research, KBW

Thank you. Morning, everyone.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Morning.

Andrew Stimpson
Head of European Banks Research, KBW

all the comments on that interest income that you've made already. Thanks for those. Just on provisions, and appreciate what you just said on Commercial Real Estate there, is there anything you're seeing more broadly, whether it's, you know, away from Commercial Real Estate that makes the 30- 40 basis point range still valid? Or is that you're just trying to be conservative because we're at the beginning of the year and who knows what will happen and you just don't want to be too aggressive on the guides for provisions just yet? Thank you.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Well, I think it is fair to say, Andrew, that conservatism underpins our approach to management of the bank in all its dimensions. We have a very comprehensive suite of early warning indicators, which is designed to alert us at an early juncture to any signs of distress in terms of the various loan books that we are charged with managing. We have been expecting to see those signs of distress coming through on foot of higher interest rates and perhaps a more uncertain international environment. To date, we just haven't seen that. We are very comfortable with our cost risk guidance for the year and very comfortable with the level of provisions that we have in place.

We have taken a very conservative, cautious, and forward-looking approach to provision, provisioning right the way through the cycle, and we continue to do so. Very happy where we stand.

Andrew Stimpson
Head of European Banks Research, KBW

Very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you, Andrew. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes to line of Borja Ramirez from Citi. Borja, your line is open. Please ask your question.

Borja Ramirez Segura
Director and Equity Research Analyst, Citi

Thank you. Hello. Good morning. Can you hear me?

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Loud and clear.

Borja Ramirez Segura
Director and Equity Research Analyst, Citi

Perfect. Thank you very much. I have two quick questions. The firstly is on the loan to deposit ratio. I estimate it to be around 65% post-secure portfolio, which is much below your peers. I would like to ask if this could allow you to have a lower deposit beta versus peers going forward. Also if you could kindly indicate what was the deposit beta in Q1. My second question is on the structural hedge. Could you please repeat the size that you target as of Q2 and also the average yield? Thank you.

Donal Galvin
CFO, AIB Group

Yeah. Look, LDR has been an interesting journey. We did not target a high fifties or low sixties LDR in the middle of COVID, I can guarantee you. However, you know, that was the beginning of, you know, a period of time where, you know, we started to accumulate liabilities in the personal space, in the business space. You know, we kind of expected post-COVID and lockdowns ending for that to normalize, and there was an amount of that. We had the next move, which was, you know, two or five banks are leaving town. We put in place a very comprehensive program to target customers from UB or KBC who are looking to move their accounts.

I think we estimate that we attracted 48% of the free flow, which is, you know, a really, really, really good outcome. That has given even further impetus to our LDR. I think it's I should say it's around 65%. Gonna change slightly with the acquisition of EUR 5 billion of tracker mortgages, but very, very strong overall. Look, I think in theory, if one has a lower LDR, one can price significantly differently or lower. We are, you know, we're in a kind of a smaller consolidated market. You know, we will look to ensure that we offer fair pricing on asset liabilities for all of our customers.

u know, in the low 60s is obviously one of the main drivers of the NII trajectory that we've seen over the last number of quarters. But there's no absolute answers to that because one always looks at the mix of liabilities to ensure that one is keeping, attracting, and retaining the most valuable parts of the liability structure. I think on the SHP, what I said, year-end in eurozone around EUR 20 billion. As we sit here today, probably have increased that to around EUR 26 billion, and I expect that to be up around EUR 30 billion for the half year or at least EUR 30 billion. And those swaps were put on between three and five years overall.

You can look at the weighted average over the last 6 months of those rates. Really what we're trying to do is just increase that weighted average receive rate on the structural hedge portfolio, which we will continue to do and extend its duration so we could understand returns for 2024 and 2025. I'll give a more comprehensive overview of that SHP at the half year. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much indeed for joining us on the call this morning. We're going to call it there. We have an AGM to go to, and we look forward to engaging with you out on the road and virtually over the course of the next number of months. Thank you again for your time this morning.

Operator

That concludes our conference call today. Thank You for participating. You are now all disconnected. Have a nice day.

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