Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to İşbank First Quarter Financial Results audio webcast. Our event will be hosted by Ms. İzlem Erdem, CFO, and Ms. Nilgün Yosef Osman, Head of IR and Sustainability. As always, presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please use the raise your hand button or type in the Q&A area. Now I hand over to İzlem.
Thank you. Hello and welcome to our earnings presentation for the first quarter. This is İzlem speaking. Thank you all for joining. Let me provide a summary of the period with respect to macroeconomic environment and İşbank's performance before leaving the floor to Nilgün for the details. In the first quarter of 2024, domestic economic activity showed remarkable resilience despite the tighter monetary policy stance. During this period, due to base year impact, industrial production recorded a limited annual increase while demand indicators remained strong. This suggests that demand-side inflationary pressures continued. During the first quarter of the year, monthly inflation exceeded expectations, primarily driven by the increase in the minimum wage, fluctuating energy prices, and the impact of backward indexation. Accordingly, following the January rate hike, CBRT made another significant move by raising the policy rate to 50% at its March meeting.
This decision strengthened the already tight monetary policy stance. It's noteworthy that the positive assessments and rating upgrades from international credit rating agencies have confirmed the growing confidence in the Turkish economy. We anticipate a gradual decline in monthly inflation figures, taking the year-end annual inflation to 40%-45% levels, and a slowdown in GDP growth to 3.5%. Given the current level of USD TL, we reiterate our expectation for a real appreciation of the Turkish lira throughout the year. Against the backdrop of these macro and operating conditions, as we expected, the pressure on net interest margins prevailed in the first quarter as well. In that respect, spread and margin management has been our primary focus.
Although repricing of assets has been a supporting element for the expansion of margins, the ongoing rate hike cycle, along with additional quantitative tightening measures, mainly in reserve requirements, have put a further pressure on net interest margins and delayed the expected improvement in margins. Going forward, we expect the improvement to become visible as the funding rates have now reached a plateau. On the other hand, our continuous remarkable performance in fee generation capabilities and clean trading income performance, as well as sustained contribution from our subsidiary portfolio, supported the profitability. Needless to say, asset quality indicators remain intact. In the first quarter, once again, we demonstrated expertise in managing asset quality, displaying a strong collection performance and highest NPL coverage ratio among peers, resulting in a superior NPL performance on a comparable basis. Last but not least, we maintained our solid capitalization levels.
These levels are definitely strong enough to absorb any potential adversities in the economy, as well as to support future growth. This is valid for the liquidity levels as well, which currently hovers around 350% for the FX LCR, even after the redemption of $1.25 billion of Eurobond in April. When we come to the fourth slide, on this page, we have the major P&L items, as well as the profitability and efficiency indicators. The increasing pressure on net interest income, which is a natural outcome of prevailing tightening policies, is offset by other core banking items, such as clean trading income increased by 229% annually. Thanks to our continuous efforts, outstanding net fee income generation continued, posting an impressive quarterly increase of 15%, carrying the annual growth to 215%. On top of that, we sustained the largest fee base among peers.
Income from participations has also provided a notable support to our net income. Annual increase in OpEx is around 52%, well below the inflation levels. All in all, our return on equity in the first quarter stood at more than 31%. I want to also recall that in the last quarter of 2023, we had topped up our free provision base by TRY 3.5 billion, bringing the balance to TRY 10 billion in order to be comfortable in an environment where monetary and quantitative tightening processes will continue for a while in order to tackle inflation. As the visibility has already improved, we released TRY 4 billion of free provisions in this quarter. Now I will leave the floor to Nilgün for the details of the bank's performance.
Thank you, İzlem Hanım. Welcome all, and thank you for joining the webcast. In the slides, you can see the main balance sheet items. In the first quarter, we strategically managed our loan growth, taking into account monthly limitations. We continued to be selective, and our focus was on productive areas such as SME business, exports, and investments, most of which are exempt from these limitations. Our TL lending growth was 13.5%. In line with our budget, FX lending increased 1.7% in the first quarter. With the stabilization of macro conditions, we expect a pickup in FX loans going forward. We plan to continue being active in export finance, in which we have a share of around 16%. We will also benefit from the increasing tourism activity in the country. On the funding side, we maintained our cost-sensitive and rational pricing approach.
Additionally, we kept our focus on widespread granular core deposit base. In the first quarter, TL deposits posted a decrease, while FX deposits slightly increased in this quarter. As you know, İşbank has the largest demand deposit base among peers. In Q1, where deposit rates stayed at high levels, the share of demand deposits stood at 45%, providing substantial support to our funding cost base. Moreover, core deposits that are sticky in nature make up around 72% of total deposits. The increase in our non-deposit funding base is a reflection of our flexible and cost-oriented approach to attain optimized funding composition. Regarding the external liabilities, as you know, we redeemed our $1.25 billion 2024 senior Eurobond, which matured in April. After this redemption, our total external dues are $6.5 billion, of which $3.8 billion is due in the next 12-month period.
Against that, our FX liquid assets are more than enough to cover short-term repayment amounts. ESG remained a priority in FX wholesale funding. On top of being able to obtain a more diversified base of ESG-related funding instruments, their share in total funding has been increasing. By the end of the first quarter, the share of sustainable funding stood at around 45%. Going forward, we will continue to evaluate potential transactions for FX wholesale funding based on market conditions, as well as the needs of our balance sheet management. We would also like to share our recent transaction, which is a very special milestone in celebrating our 100th anniversary. In April, we have issued TRY 4.5 billion of the 100th Anniversary Green Bond in the domestic market, which is the first green bond public offering. On the next page, we have the NIM and spread evolution.
In the first quarter of the year, market conditions remained tightened with a continued rate hike cycle. Deposit costs were also in an upward trend. On the other hand, loan rates were also increasing in a gradual manner. With the ongoing repricing of the loan portfolio, TL spreads will continue to improve going forward. On the FX side, we benefited from our high demand deposit base, as well as very low deposit costs and better FX spread than our peers. Since FX loan growth is expected to pick up slightly, this will continue to support our interest income base. In this quarter, pressure on funding costs and margin evolution continued to be the major challenge in our operating environment. Thanks to our efforts, trading income helped to offset some of these pressures. On the other hand, we expect NIM to gradually improve throughout the year.
As of the end of March, the share of securities in total assets was 20.4%. Looking at the composition of TL securities, we see that the share of fixed income securities increased to 43%. However, we continued to maintain the diversified structure of the book, enjoying the benefit arising from the support of floating rate notes with a share of 57%. Our CPI linker portfolio makes up 34.2% of TL securities, contributing to our income base by TRY 12.3 billion. As you know, for the valuation of the CPI linker portfolio, unlike our peers, we are using 12 months ahead CPI expectations. I would like to mention once again that the expected downward trend in CPI in the second half of the year will help us prove the merit of our methodology by providing us a relatively consistent revenue stream from linkers in 2024 and beyond.
Moving on with net fees and commissions, fee income generation was again strong in this quarter, thanks to our diversified business model and solid customer base. We achieved a quarterly increase of 15%, carrying the annual growth to an impressive 215%. Thanks to our strategic efforts, we have maintained our leadership position as having the largest fee base among our peers. Drivers of the strong growth were again across the board, with the eye-catching performance of payment systems growing by 391% annually. It is important to note once again that we achieved the highest fee base in payment systems, asset management, and cash loans. The next page shows the NPL and provisioning trends. In the first quarter, we have seen further improvement in our asset quality metrics. Our NPL ratio declined to 1.9% from 2.1% as of the end of 2023.
Net NPL formation was limited in Q1, thanks to our strong collection performance and declining inflows. In this quarter, inflows were largely across the board. Our total net cost of risk, including currency impact, stood at 56 basis points for the first quarter. Furthermore, as part of our cautious approach, our NPL coverage ratios stood at 76%, highest among peers. The next page shows the capitalization levels. Our capital ratios remained at solid levels at the end of Q1. The capital adequacy ratio, without the BRSA's forbearance measures, stood at 16.3%, while Common Equity Tier 1 was at 13.3%. A slight decline in capital adequacy ratio compared to the year-end can be mainly associated with seasonal impacts, such as operational risk calculation and dividend distribution.
We believe that our capital ratios are strong enough to absorb any potential adversities in the economy, as well as to sustain the growth whenever it is deemed favorable. As we always share, the sensitivity of our capital adequacy ratio to 10% depreciation in TL is around 35 basis points, while the sensitivity to 100 basis points increase in TL interest rates is around 8 basis points. This concludes our presentation. Thank you for your attention, and I would now like to open the floor for questions.
Hello. We have a question from Mikhail Butkov, Goldman Sachs. Mikhail, you can now unmute yourself and ask your question.
Hello. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. One is, what net interest margin trajectory do you expect? Any comments on that for the remaining quarters of this year in the light of the recent hike? And also, in terms of guidance, what areas do you see tracking better or maybe behind in terms of the key metrics so far relative to the guidance which you shared earlier this year? Thank you very much.
Thank you. In terms of NIM, I can say that while maintaining our view with respect to the general trend for NIM, I can say that a 500 basis point rate hike in March put an additional burden on net interest margin for the first and second quarters. In this regard, NIM may stay flattish throughout the first half of the year. But since the funding rates seem to have reached their peak levels, with the support of ongoing asset repricing, we expect NIM to be in an improving trajectory going forward. For the second question, you have asked for the guidance. You asked which one is the better fee income or?
I rather asked, so looking at how the first quarter shaped up, what areas in your guidance do you see? Where do you see potential for revisions? Let's put it this way.
First of all, we still haven't changed our guidance for the year ahead. We will be monitoring especially the second quarter, and then we might revise our expectations. But it seems that nowadays we are comfortable with our macroeconomic assumptions. As I mentioned, we will be looking for the second quarter in order to make an assessment for the revision of our guidance. But it seems that we have a very strong fee income in the first quarter. And as you might remember, our guidance for the whole year was a fee income growth above 100%, which means that we have already a higher fee income growth in the first quarter. And we expect this trend to continue throughout the year, which means that there will be a strong support coming from the fee income to our profitability throughout the whole year.
Yeah. Thank you very much for this clarification. And also, net interest margin, you mentioned you expect an improving trajectory going forward. But on the timing for more significant improvements, do you expect it to be in the second half of the year or already from the second quarter?
Yeah. We expect the second quarter a flattish course, in fact, because the rate hike was at the end of March, which means that our second quarter will be under the impact or under the pressure of the last rate hike. In this sense, as the asset repricing gone and as we have already reached a plateau in terms of our deposit costs, we are expecting the improvement in the net interest margin starting from the third quarter. There will be a significant, let me say, improvement in the last quarter according to our expectations on NIM.
Okay. Thank you very much. That is very clear.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
At this point, we have some written questions. The first one comes from Pınar Uğuroğlu from TEB Securities. She asks about our holding plans. What is the timeline? And do you plan an IPO in 2025?
Thank you very much. As you know, we are still in the, let me say, approval process of the demerger transaction. As we disclosed before, we are using the year-end figures, 2023 figures, in this process. We have already provided the necessary documentation and application process in line with the year-end figures. We are waiting for the approval both from the domestic policymakers and from abroad. That's why it will take some more time. As you might remember, the overall transaction should be completed in eight months' time, latest by the end of August 2023, if we use the year-end figures of 2023. So if the approval comes in this period, then we will go to a general assembly for their approval as well. We cannot say anything about the IPO opportunities because, first, we have to establish the, let me say, holding company.
Namely, we call it as TİBAŞ. And then we want to see the performance of the company because we are expecting the umbrella company to have a synergic, let me say, way of management of our subsidiaries. And then, as the performance increases in the future, we might consider whether there will be an IPO or not. But it is too early to comment on it.
Valentina Stoykova from Barclays has several questions. First of all, she asks if we see any upside or downside risks to our guidance. I guess this question has been already answered. On top of that, she asks about our issuance plans going forward, especially AT1 , and about our intention for the call option that will be in question in 2025.
Yeah. We are generally monitoring the markets in order to decide whether to have a, let me say, a new issuance. We are ready in terms of documentation, but the timing is important for us. That's why the market conditions will be important. We will continue to monitor. We may have an issuance at any time as the market conditions become relevant for us. That's why we will continue to monitor the trends in the market.
Maybe I can add about the call option. So, as you have mentioned, we have a call option in the beginning of 2025. So we will evaluate it according to the market conditions again. We still have time for the evaluation, taking into account, of course, investor perception.
I believe that's all with respect to your questions. Now, I'm handing over to presenters for closing remarks.
Thank you very much for your participation. We believe today we have disclosed another strong set of results indicating our expertise in weathering challenging operating environments. Regarding the details, let's be in touch. Looking forward to seeing you all in person soon. Until then, stay safe and healthy. Thank you.