Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have the pleasure of opening today's conference call. Let me start with a summary of where MONETA stands. If I can ask you to turn to page number two. During the first semester of 2026, we delivered net profit of CZK 3.3 billion, whereas that constitutes an improvement of more than 8% against comparable period of previous year. The improved profitability comes on the back of increasing operating income. The operating income came in at CZK 7.2 billion, and we have improvement on net interest income, coupled with improvement on net fee and commission income, which we will see throughout the presentation. Operating expenses, the cost base is stable, came in at CZK 2.9 billion, as a very small increase of 0.2%. With respect to the balance sheet, we focused the bank on growth in lending activity.
The portfolio grew by more than 9% and reached level of CZK 3.10 billion. At the same time, given our targets with respect to cost of funds and gradual improvement in the net interest margin of the bank, the funding base increased to a level of CZK 481 billion, which is slightly more than 4%. Increasing size of balance sheet, CZK 525 billion, actually stable against the last quarter, but we cannot forget that in the second quarter, we made a fairly material dividend distribution. Turning into capital, we have capital adequacy ratio of 20%. This is an improvement of 4.5 percentage points. This comes on the basis of completing the structure of our capital optimization structure, optimized structure of the capital. We issued EUR 150 million of AT1 instrument, and this obviously translates into a better capital position.
With CET1 ratio at 13.1%, this stands at excess to the management target, and we also enjoy a comfortable MREL position on individual basis, well over 28% with significant excess. That is coupled also with solid liquidity position, where the LCR stands at 300%, and the performance in the first semester translates into stable return on tangible equity and also stable return with respect to ROE. Let me turn to key messages that the bank would like to convey with respect to the first semester and the rest of the year.
For the rest of the year, we are targeting lending growth in the range of 7.5%-9.5%, where the current run rate stands at 9.1%. This is in line with the strategy of the bank to refocus it a little bit into high-margin products, which concerns namely self-employed small businesses and entrepreneurs, and you will see it in the balance sheet section how that evolves. With respect to deposit growth, we have conservative target of 2.5%-3.5%, and this is linked to the fact that we would like to keep the cost of funds as stable as possible. We also have to keep in mind the target to improve the NIM. Henceforth, this is where we currently stand on the deposit strategy. That could change should the expansion of the loan book exceed our expectations. This is the current position of the bank.
With respect to net interest margin, the target is to reach by the end of the year a range of 215%-220%, which is a function of, I would say, two developments. One is the repricing of the legacy exposures and, obviously also supported by the current lending mix. I think you will see full result of that in 2027. We also continue successfully with the distribution of third-party products, which is, simply put, insurance and wealth management. The wealth management is quite important. The year-end target is a range of CZK 92.5 billion-CZK 95 billion of distributed volumes, coupled with a sales target of CZK 22 billion, where during the first semester we distributed CZK 10.9 billion. Assuming there will be no negative events in the capital markets or increased instability, we are fairly confident to be able to get there.
With respect to the operating income, on the next page, we are targeting operating income at level of CZK 14.8 billion. This would translate into year-over-year growth should we achieve it, of 6.1%, and this incorporates number of factors. On the cost management, against the maximum cost level, which we communicated through the February 3rd guidance, we would like to save at minimum CZK 75 million. This will also hopefully support some upside that we are seeking to communicate at the moment, and we would like to keep the cost-income ratio below 40%. We stand committed to the cost of risk or risk management, result of 20-35 basis points, albeit there are several factors that need to be mentioned here. Number one, the bank no longer has management overlays, which the root of those was the COVID pandemic.
Gradually, we released the overlays because the risks associated with them did not materialize. In the future, and this is reflected in the guidance, you see elevation of the cost of risk, and this is clear from the guidance that our expectations are at that elevated level. For this year, we stand behind the range. I think we will see somewhere around middle of the range or slightly higher. Nonetheless, this is incorporated into the upside on the net profit of the bank. What is positive here is the fact that we increased lending, and with the increased lending, you have at the inception of those loans into the balance sheet, you have obviously higher level of provisioning related to Stage 1. The second positive is that we keep the balance sheet clean of NPLs.
The bank has historically lowest NPL ratio, and if you look at the NPL disposal target, we are well above in the first semester, and by the end of the year, we would like to accomplish disposal of NPLs in the total amount of CZK 1.1 billion for the year, and we are on the road to accomplish that. Taking all these factors together, we expect, or we elevate the minimum profitability target of the bank for the 2026 to CZK 6.8 billion, and we certainly hope to achieve it. Now, these are the key messages. Let me speak a little bit about the operating environment. We start with GDP, unemployment, indebtedness, and government deficit. For this year, the prediction on GDP growth, 2.5%. We saw growth in the first quarter of 2.2%, and we are waiting for the first semester numbers.
Given the overall market expansion in lending activity, I would say that the second quarter will come in better than the first quarter. There is nothing really to comment with respect to indebtedness of Czech Republic. Perhaps more importantly, the government deficit, as you know, had been predicted at CZK 310 billion. The current deficit stands at CZK 184 billion, and I think there will be pressure to meet the CZK 310 billion number, given the policies of the current government, given the pressure to increase investments into rearming Czech Republic and some additional factors that will play into that part of the picture. We see nascent but steady increase of the unemployment.
So far, when you look at Norman's part of the presentation, this does not translate into increasing past dues in the bank. We are cautiously, let's say, monitoring this and will adjust credit policies should the increase continue and become material. Now let's go to inflation and interest rates. We see abating inflation. The numbers so far look good despite the conflict in the Middle East. Nonetheless, the key benchmark rate has been increased by Czech National Bank. Czech National Bank cites several reasons for this action. Number one, growth in wages. Number two, government deficit and spending. Number three, uncertainty with respect to impact of the conflict in the Middle East. Broadly speaking, we expect that the key rate might increase to 4%, additional 25 basis points. There is a very high probability attached to it.
The central bank communicates very clearly that it would like to slow down the lending expansion, namely on retail. The central bank also mentions that it would like to slow down cost of housing in Czech Republic, which has been steady. Those are, let's say, the cited reasons behind this action. If you look at the yield curve, the black line represents the mid-year position. We are actually above that, so we can call it parallel shift. I think that we might see additional increases in the medium to long-term rates. If I had to simplify it a lot, this is the lingering fear from increasing inflation, and I think we will live with higher rates for some time to come. Now, briefly on the operating platform. The summary is on page 10. I would say stable.
What we see on development of customer base, it's the broadest NPS. This is directly linked to the rates that we offer on deposit products where we are at the lower end of the market. We continue to close and relocate branches. This becomes evident once you look at the development of our digital banking performance and ability to distribute products through that channel. Stable ATM coverage of the country. With respect to employment, we have slight decrease. However, there is a significant shift within the bank from front-end positions, where the reduction is again caused by the success of digital channels. We see shift into IT related functions as we try to stay on the vanguard with digitization. Secondly, as we put more transactions and higher volumes through the bank, that impacts risk management.
It also impacts back offices, it also impacts some other functions where we seek to increase efficiency and improve consistency through projects implementing artificial intelligence. Nonetheless, this is a, I would say, medium to long-term road as we are experimenting effectively in that realm. We will evaluate the results and inform you in the upcoming quarters. Turning a page to digital platform, I think what is notable on the digital platform is that we significantly improved the volumes that we originate through digital channels. The 56% growth is, in my view, respectable. With respect to other elements of this, I would say the most notable success is on servicing transactions, where we are able to shift the servicing from human interaction into the digital realm.
Second, I think what is important is the bank continues in growth of intermediation, this is evident from the 9% growth with respect to payment transactions in the bank. Let's look at the branch network. What you see on the branch network is steady decline of branch visits. We do not calculate into this number interaction of our sales force with respect to some of the elements of the business model. We will do it so the numbers will improve. Nonetheless, I think the trend is very clear that branch visits are becoming less important. With that in mind, the branch network remains quite important with respect to our ability to distribute third-party products where we have a fairly high element of advisory and the human interaction is important.
Secondly, the branch network remains material to our ability to originate credit, both in terms of volume and in terms of growth. We posted nearly 37% growth within the branch network on origination. For the transition of the branch network is lesser coverage and better locations. We will close branches, but we are also modernizing the network in terms of seeking better engagement areas to improve the traffic in whatever remains in the next three years of the branch network as such. Turning into contact center, I think one of the important things to highlight here is email communication. As we are converting and improving our serviceability through the digital channels, you see quite a material decline in email interaction.
We have steady, slightly increasing volume of calls in the call center, this is one of the areas where we wish to deploy artificial intelligence to really work on preventing the calls rather than reducing them through better understanding what we have to improve in the product structure or in the servicing capability through the digital. We decreased the staff. We, I think, communicated that while in the previous quarter, while we improved quite significantly the performance metrics of the contact center and slightly improved the client satisfaction with that platform. On the ATM network, very briefly what is transpiring here is investment into deposit machines. It's not only us, it's not only MONETA, it's the other three partners that we have in the shared network are all investing in deposit-taking capability.
This is evidenced also by the fairly strong growth of deposit-taking through ATMs, it's also linked to the fact that MONETA and other banks are seeking to make branches cashless and to provide 24/7 deposit-taking capacity. Here I would highlight that we remain at the vanguard of innovation as the bank introduced recently capacity to take euro-denominated deposits, by November of this year, we would like to enable our part of the network with respect to euro withdrawal capacity. So far, we are covering the belt of Czech Republic, which is adjacent to Germany and Austria, as many people seek employment in those countries, so we want to provide the convenience on the euro deposits. I sometimes jokingly say that we are implementing euro ahead of Czech Republic. With that in mind, let me summarize the performance. Net profit CZK 3.3 billion.
The bank aims at, I would say, robust growth rates in terms of key products on the asset side around the loan book. We have realistic expectations with respect to deposit expansion under the current scenario, all factors taken into account, we improved the minimum net profit target by CZK 200 million to CZK 6.8 billion. I will turn over to Jan, whom will walk you through the details of our P&L composition.
Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am on page 16, it's my pleasure to walk you through the profit and loss statement section. Let me repeat the key financials. In the first half of the year, MONETA delivered net profit of CZK 3.3 billion, representing a year-on-year improvement of 8.1%, earnings per share of CZK 6.5, and a stable return on tangible equity of 23.3%. Improved profitability was delivered on the back of revenue growth of 6.5%, reaching CZK 7.2 billion, which is a combination of net interest income growth of 8.5% stemming from ongoing lending growth, accompanied by improved net interest margin, also net fee and commission income growth of 6.2%, driven by ongoing solid performance in the distribution of third-party products. On the other hand, operating income decline is a result of lower result of financial derivatives, only partially mitigated by higher client FX income.
On the cost base, we managed to keep our cost base stable below CZK 2.9 billion, which together with the revenue growth, resulted in the cost-to-income ratio improvement to 38.4%. On the credit cost line, we report credit costs of CZK 414 million or 28 basis points of the average loan portfolio, which is at the midpoint of our guided range, 20-35 basis points. Moving forward on page 17, we can analyze in detail net interest income development. In the second quarter, we delivered year-on-year growth of 9.2% also improvement of 5% against the previous quarter. This was accompanied by a higher net interest margin reaching 2.1%. The key driver of the growth is the interest income from the lending, which went up by 10.3%. This is a combination of the lending growth focused on the high margin products, accompanied by repricing of the mortgage book.
Treasury income went down year-on-year in line with the average two-week repo rate decline. Last but not least, higher interest income is a function of the deposit base expansion. On page 18, we provide a similar view on the net fee and commission income development. We had very strong second quarter delivering year-on-year growth of 10.8% and 5% against the first quarter of this year. Drivers of that are provided on the right side. First of all, the third-party commission income went up by 23.8% together, out of that, the commission income generated by the wealth management products increased by 49%, and from the insurance products went up by 7%. The fee income category shows year-on-year growth of CZK 25 million, which is a combination of higher penalties by nearly 15% and 3% growth of transactional and servicing fees.
Fee expense is up year-on-year by CZK 50 million, which corresponds to the one-off bonus we obtained and recognized in the second quarter of last year. On page 19, we can look at the wealth management products distribution in more detail. In the first half of the year, the commission income improved by 33%, this is driven by higher trail fee by 46.6%, reaching CZK 371 million, which is a function of the expansion of outstanding amount of distributed wealth management products by 31.5%, reaching more than CZK 88.5 billion crowns at the end of June.
Also in the first half of the year, our customers invested with us CZK 10.9 billion, which generated the opening fee of CZK 173 million, up by 11.6% year-on-year. On page 20, we provide performance in the distribution of insurance products. The commission income improved year-on-year in the first half of the year by 2.9%.
Also this year we sold more insurance policies by 1.5%, reaching nearly 95,000 of insurance policies sold. On the right side, we provide more detail about performance in individual categories or product detail. You can see that we improved the performance in three out of four categories, namely income generated by the payment protection insurance increased by 9.2% year-on-year, from the pension insurance by 17.9%, and the commission income generated by other insurance products increased by 6.1%. On the other hand, we suffered a slowdown in the distribution of life insurance, resulting in a lower income by 11.7% year-on-year. On page 21, we can continue with the cost base development. As mentioned before, we achieved a stable cost base below CZK 2.9 billion, and the composition shows that two categories report an inflation and increase, namely regulatory charges are up by 8.7%.
This is in line with the deposit base expansion or mostly driven by the deposit base expansion. Also personal costs are up by 8.8% year-on-year. This I will comment in more detail on the following page. On the other hand, this inflation was mitigated by the savings reported by other two cost categories. Depreciation and amortization charge is down by 8.7%, also admin costs are declining by 7.8% year-on-year. On page 22, we can look at the personal costs development in more detail. The reported growth of 8.9% is a combination of higher recurrent costs by 8.3%, stemming from the average salary increase of 6.3%, partially mitigated by a lower workforce by 2%. In the second quarter, we incurred CZK 75 million of one-off costs, representing performance-driven variable compensation for the management. We complete this section on page 23, where we report admin costs development in detail.
In the second quarter, we report a decline of 9.4% year-on-year, mostly visible in the IT costs and marketing costs. In case of the marketing cost saving, this is rather temporary due to a different timing of campaigns this year versus the last year. This was my last comment to the profit and loss statement section, and I will now hand over to my colleague, Jan Novotný, for the balance sheet development. Thank you.
Thank you, Jan, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I have a pleasure to walk you through the next section of today's presentation, the balance sheet section. As my dear colleague, Andrew Gerber, is out of office this week, I will cover both retail and commercial updates. Let me start on page 25, showing the evolution of the loan portfolio growth. I will start at the upper left corner. Our loan portfolio has grown by more than 9% year-on-year and more than 6% in last six months, and we get almost CZK 310 billion balance. We grew also our funding base by more than 4% in last 12 months and by 3.7% in last six months. On the bottom of the page, we can also see very positive evolution of our yields.
We have increased the average yield by eight basis points in loans, while at the same time we have decreased by seven basis points our average cost of funding. Moving to the next page, we have expanded our balance sheet by 4.5% or CZK 22.4 billion in absolute amount. The chart is also showing the key growing parts on both assets and liability side, with the key contributor is net custom loans plus CZK 25.7 billion in assets and customer deposits plus CZK 16.2 billion on liability side. Overall balance sheet has expanded to CZK 525.2 billion at the end of Q2 2026. The next page 27, is showing that we have achieved a strong lending volume growth with a focus on high-margin products. The new volume origination has reached CZK 51.7 billion, which represent 43.9% growth year-on-year.
On the right side of the page, you'll find the split per segment and product, with the highest growth in mortgages, + 62%, and SME, + 58%. Talking about the portfolio growth, let's move to the next slide. The current lending strategy results in more than 9% growth, and we have reached CZK 309.6 billion at the end of first half of this year. We were successfully growing in all segments, with 4.2% growth in retail, 27.5% growth in small business, and 16.5% in SME. Let's look a little bit more in depth on the growth on the retail loans, and this is what you can find on page number 29. Retail loan portfolio growth was driven by mortgages + 4%, consumer loans almost + 10%, and also auto loans, + 6.4%. The only product group which was not growing is the other loan category.
However, this is fully in line with our strategy as some of the products are in runoff mode or market condition does not allow to grow it profitably. Next page 30, is showing similar split also for the commercial portfolio. Investment in small business loans were instrumental in driving nearly 19% growth in the commercial segment. The good news is also that the growth was driven mainly by Express Business loan and secured business loan. Those are the products where we achieved very good margin with, at the same time, a very favorable and efficient capital allocation. Moving to the next page, our overall loan portfolio yield went up to 5% at the end of Q2, supported by retail yield increase to 4.6% thanks to a very successful repricing of the mortgage book and a stable commercial yield at 5.7%.
That was about the loan book, and now let's have a deeper look into the funding base. We have achieved 4.1% expansion that was supported by growth in all three segments, with +1.4% in retail, +11.3% in commercial, and +10.9% in wholesale funding. On the next page 33, we are showing the evolution of the combined position of retail deposit and wealth management. Overall volume has grown by 6.4% to a level of CZK 427.7 billion, thanks to a very successful effort to move some of the customer free liquidity from deposits into profitable wealth management products. If you look into the split of the retail deposit, this is on the page number 34, we can see that the retail deposit base slightly increased by 1.4% as a result of current pricing policy.
We have managed to grow year-on-year in both current accounts deposits with +1% year-on-year and saving and term deposits with +1.4% year-on-year. Next page is showing similar split, this time for the Commercial segment. Here we have grown the balance by 11.3%, and similar to retail, we have grown in both product lines with 14.8% year-on-year growth in current accounts and +8.1% in savings and term deposits. Now we are arriving to the last page of the balance sheet section, showing the average cost of funds evolution. Overall cost of funds stays stable at 2.18% as the competitive market situation currently does not allow for further decrease of funding cost. With that, thank you very much for your attention, and please let me hand over to Norman for the risk section of today's presentation.
Thank you very much.
All right. Thank you, Jan, and good morning to you. We now move to page 38, outlining key risk metrics for the first six months this year compared to 2025. Let me start on the top left of this page. Cost of risk amounted to 28 basis points, which is an increase year-over-year by 9 basis points. The key driver of the increase, largely driven by this one commercial default, which was mentioned earlier, but also higher new lending volumes in the reporting period. Overall, the 28 basis points sit well within the provided guidance of 20 to 35 basis points. If we move to the top right on the page, if you look at the loan loss provision coverage, here we saw a drop from 1.37 to 1.15.
This drop was largely driven by the release of the management overlays, but also of the continuation of our non-performing loan sales. Total non-performing loan coverage stood at 124.5%, which constitutes an increase by almost 11 percentage points and remains on a solid level. Last but not least, here, the NPL ratio dropped by 30 basis points from 1.2% to 0.9%, which is the lowest level recorded ever at MONETA.
We continue on page 39 with a more granular view on cost of risk for the last couple of quarters. If you just look at Q2, in absolute amounts, cost of risk amounted to CZK 254 million. Looking at the breakdown between retail and commercial. In retail, we saw a fairly low cost of risk of CZK 14 million, driven by the release of the management overlays for the mortgages, which was CZK 130 million, which came out from the balance sheet.
In commercial, we had the opposite evolution here. We had a significant increase compared to previous quarters, largely driven by this one commercial default, which accounts for CZK 80 million, where we created 100% coverage. Also above plan, new originations in the commercial space, where we were booking up Stage 1 provisions in line with our provisioning model. Looking at the first half altogether, it was mentioned earlier, CZK 414 million or 28 basis points, which is within our provided guidance. This takes us to page 40. Here we have an overview of the loan portfolio vis-à-vis coverages and NPLs. On the top left, you see the evolution of the gross loan portfolio, which increased by around CZK 25 billion year-over-year, or almost 9%.
At the same time, stock of provisions dropped from CZK 3.9 billion to CZK 3.6 billion, which is a result of the release of the management overlays, where we have zero balances now at the end of June, but also NPL disposals during the reporting period. Loan loss provision coverage we covered earlier, on a solid level with 124 percentage points. Non-performing loan portfolio dropped by CZK 560 million or 16% and reached an ending balance of a tick shy of CZK 2.9 billion. This takes us to page 41 with our NPL log since June 2025. I will just focus on the second quarter. As you can see here, we saw a lower formation in the second quarter, despite the fact that we had this CZK 80 million increase of NPL because of this one commercial customer.
At the same time, we continued to collect as part of our ongoing activities, but also NPL disposals, where we sold NPLs worth CZK 306 million, which contributed to the ending balance of CZK 2.9 million, staying flat quarter-over-quarter. The last page in the risk section, page 42, here we have the delinquency ratios 30, 60, 90+ days past due. All of them remain on a very low level thanks to the still fairly low unemployment rate, despite the fact it has been increasing in recent quarters, but still on a comparatively lower level. Summarizing the risk section, I think we can state overall, with the cost of risk recorded for the first six months, we ended up on the midpoint of our guidance, number one. Number two, the Q2 results was impacted by the one default I mentioned, as well as the higher new lending volumes.
Core performance solid, judging from the delinquencies and NPLs on a very low level. The management overlays, obviously now being fully released, mean that going forward, the cost of risk is expected to normalize in future periods. For the full year guidance for 2026, we remain committed to the provided guidance of 20-35 basis points. With that, I hand over to Jan Friček to continue with the liquidity and capital section. Thank you.
Thank you, Norman. MONETA maintained strong liquidity position throughout the last 12 months, as demonstrated across all ratios on page 44, namely loan-to-deposit ratio slightly increased to 68% year-on-year from 65%. This slight increase is attributable to successful lending growth. Besides that, the share of high-quality liquid assets in customer deposits stood at 39%. The regulatory ratios in the charts below are both well above 100% regulatory limit. On page 45, we can continue with the high-quality liquid assets position. We managed to keep the position stable at CZK 178 billion. Besides that, we maintain a healthy share of the excess liquidity invested in the government loans, providing solid support to the net interest income. Now I would like to turn your attention to the capital management section, starting on page 47.
As mentioned before, in the second quarter, we printed EUR 150 million of AT1 instrument, which strengthened the capital position on both consolidated as well as the individual level. The regulatory capital on consolidated level reached CZK 36 billion against CZK 30.8 billion reported at the end of December last year. This corresponds to the capital adequacy ratio of 19.95% at the end of June. The composition newly shows the support of the AT1 instrument. In the charts below, we report the excess capital over the management target, in relative terms as well as in absolute terms.
The excess in the relative terms stood at 4.45%. Out of that the CET1 capital excess reached 2.43%. In the absolute amount, the excess stood at CZK 8 billion, representing the growth since the beginning of the year by 41.5%. The CET1 capital excess stood at CZK 4.4 billion, representing CZK 8.6 per share.
I'd like to emphasize that we have already increased the management target by 25 basis points for the announced countercyclical buffer increase effectively from the 1st of July 2027. We add more detail to the capital position on consolidated level on page 48. In the top left corner, we report the development of the CET1 capital excess, which increased by CZK 1.7 billion since the beginning of the year. The CZK 4.4 billion excess is maintained on top of the accrual for the dividend distribution of CZK 3 billion. We continue to seek the dividend payout ratio at 90%, unless there is an event preventing us to do so. We conclude this section on page 49, where we report capital position on the individual level. Here, the position increased to CZK 51 billion, also with the support of newly raised AT1 instrument.
This corresponds to the umbrella recourse ratio of 28.69% with an excess of 6.39% above the management target. That was all to the capital management, and I will now hand over to Tomáš Spurný for the guidance and final remarks. Thank you.
Okay, I'm back. If you look at the P&L would be guided for the full year and what we expect, as I mentioned, CZK 200 million upside flowing into the minimum profitability target. At minimum, we would like to accomplish CZK 6.8 billion. If you look at composition of improvement, it is 2/3 on the operating income, one-third on the operating expenses, while we keep the range steady for the credit cost. This also assumes that the effective tax rate of the bank is not going to change. If you turn the page, we provide a view on the key balance sheet items driving all of this. We've guided that the gross performing loans should stand at CZK 309 billion CZK 306 billion let's call it CZK 310 billion at the end of the-- CZK 306 billion at the end of the year, and we are at CZK 310 billion.
There is nearly CZK 4 billion improvement on the lending, which is positive because we will get some upside from that for the remaining half of the year. On the deposits, we are actually at the forecasted year-end position. We stand at CZK 454 billion, slightly better. This gives us some confidence that we will overperform the minimum target communicated on February 3 of this year. If you look at the big picture, I would just like to remind that on the five-year basis, we would like to accomplish minimum cumulative profit of CZK 37.1 billion. Should we be able to do that would be an improvement of CZK 10.4 billion against the previous five years. If you look at it from the vantage point of the last six months I would say so far so good. However, we are at the beginning of this journey.
We want to thank you for your patience with us. Now if we can do questions and answers, we will try to address your questions as best as we can.
Thank you. We'll now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question and you have joined the call via Zoom, please write it into the chat on the browser or use the raise hand function on your screen. Before speaking, please ensure that your local device is unmuted. Once your question is answered, please cancel the raise hand function. If you have joined via the phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. One moment please for the first question. Our first question comes from Thomas Unger. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Thank you very much for taking my question. Thank you for the presentation. I'd like to start with capital, excess capital, and the chance of you proposing an extra dividend in the second half of 2026. Obviously, excess capital is ample on the capital adequacy ratio and also CZK 4.4 billion reported now in CET1, but the CET1 ratio is declining with the strong loan growth that you're seeing right now. RWA densities is slightly rising. Is the position comfortable enough for you to potentially propose an extra dividend in the second half of 2026? That would be my first question. Second question relating to this is also the increasing RWA density. I assume that's due to product mix. Is there anything that you can do to contain that increase in the coming quarters?
Third question would be in the risk section, and here on that single case default provision, that 100%. Is there anything else that we have to expect for the coming results? Any other effects on the portfolio? We talked about this in Q1 already. Any potential macro model changes for the heightened geopolitical risks, energy prices, oil prices, and so on and so forth, or are you comfortable with the current position right now? Then lastly, loan growth evidently very strong. You're targeting 7.5%-9.5% for the full year. The composition in growing the portfolio, is that expected to be the same in the coming quarters? Specifically, what do you expect for mortgages?
If I can, just one last one on the loan deposit ratio, which is also increasing with you being a bit more careful on deposit growth or not as aggressive as some other players in the Czech Republic. How far can you watch the loan deposit ratio growing before you become more careful on either the asset side or more aggressive on the deposit side? Thank you very much.
That's a long question. On excess capital. I think I would like to answer it this way. I think we should get credit for optimizing the capital structure so that we create room for potential dividend. If you look at the distributable excess capital, it constitutes more than CZK 8 Per share. CZK 8.5, CZK 8.6. Yeah. We have the room. As in last two or three years, what we do at the end of third quarter, we look at all of the relevant factors, and we decide whether to do an interim distribution. Other element of the answer is that we have transparently committed to earnings distribution at 90%.
If you look at how we behaved in the last three years, we actually exceeded that target, and we simply cannot commit to this because, obviously, if we were committed to an interim at the moment, we would have disclosed it. The conditions are favorable. We have a capital plan filed with the Czech National Bank, which keeps us comfortable on the CET1 accounting for the, or incorporating the expected growth of the balance sheet. Simply put, the conditions are there, and we will do it at the end of September, and decide what to do, as we did in past years.
On RWA density, the increasing density is part of our strategy, because if you look at the key messages, we very clearly indicate that we changed the product mix and in fact the segment mix in order to accomplish all of the other performance targets. Whether we can decrease the RWAs, the answer is yes, not through the product mix. We are considering, as I mentioned last quarter, that we will go on path of securitizations. We are working on that project, but at the moment, we cannot commit to a date, except that it will be done if there is demand for synthetic securitization and all of that. We will do it throughout 2027. This is another factual point, where we seek to alleviate any capital pressure that the bank might have. I would actually coin it differently.
We wish to create another space to improve the performance of the bank through that. On cost of risk projection, I will ask Norman to comment.
Yeah. The question was whether there's anything else out there for the second half of this year. The answer is, to the best of my knowledge, nothing extraordinary. This one commercial default is a one-off. It was a fraud-driven default, which indeed required us to create 100% coverage for that, which is absorbed. There's no other commercial or individually managed exposure on the radar screen, which would indicate similar issues. If you have a fraud, this is something which can always happen, and you cannot really fully anticipate. This is the first point. On the second point, anything on models, like macro models, yes, as we do it every year. In the course of the third quarter, we are reviewing the macro models. To be precise, we review the input variables, which are largely based on the forecast of the Czech National Bank.
This forecast is usually published in the course of August every year, and this will be the basis of reviewing these input variables and compare them with what we currently have in the model. Based on the latest one from, I think it was April or May, I think it was May, it does not suggest that any adverse changes would have to be incorporated. Since we live in a fairly dynamic macroeconomic environment, I cannot anticipate what the forecast or the projected forecast of the Czech National Bank is going to be in the months of August. Yes, we will review it, and we'll take into consideration whatever comes out of the latest forecast.
What were the other questions?
On mortgages.
The long growth on mortgages, we communicate consistently that this is not our primary source of growth. We want to increase the mortgage book in line with the balance sheet, and in line with the funding base. If you look at the growth of the funding base, that came in at 4.1%, and the mortgage loan book grew by 4%. We are pretty, let's say, focused on not increasing the mortgage loan book size in absolute and relative terms beyond that.
Loan-to-deposit ratio projection.
The loan-to-deposit ratio, I think, Thomas, if you look at the bank in 2020, I think we were operating at 90%, and at the height, the bank operated at 95% loan-to-deposit ratio. I think 68% can turn eventually in the long term. If you look at the guidance, I don't know what's the.
78% at the end of horizon.
Yeah, 78%. If we feel uncomfortable with the high-quality liquid assets and liquidity as such, we will adjust the target. Broadly speaking, we will keep it below 80, but it depends on a lot of factors. This is clearly communicated by the bank through its guidance, which we take very seriously as we try to tick the boxes on the P&L and on the balance sheet. This is, I guess, the simplest answer that I can provide on that. We can provide on that, rather. Anything else?
That was it. Thank you very much for taking the time and answering all my questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Just as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question and you have joined us on Zoom, please use the chat Q&A function or raise your hand. If you have joined us on the telephone lines, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. We currently have no further questions, so I'll hand back over to Mr. Spurný for closing remarks
I think we had a fairly successful first semester. The success translates into a carefully optimistic increase lift of the minimum target. With that, I would say that we are on the road to fulfill our commitment. We also taken action on the capital position of the bank, which improves our degrees of freedom with respect to shareholder distributions or growth of the bank or both. Thirdly, we manage the quality of the balance sheet very carefully. Again, we are very focused on that. We have fulfilled our commitment with respect to NPL disposal. We fulfill our commitments with respect to keeping the absolute amount of NPLs steady, where the ratio declines, obviously, through the growth of the gross loan book. We increase provisioning coverage of the NPLs. This is at 124%.
We had one isolated unpleasant case, which in my best estimate would have been difficult to avoid. Here, let me put it in the light of the fact that we are not alone. Amongst the banks in Czech Republic, that got burned with the customer who worked with us for 16 years. That's unfortunate, but let's be positive. We look with confidence for the rest of the year. We will meet all of you hopefully in October when we disclose the results. We are also going to be available for shareholder contact through events that are published in the presentation. We are tremendously thankful for your great questions and for attention that you pay to the bank. With that, all of you, please have good summer, have good weekend, and we thank you very much for your appreciation of MONETA. Goodbye.
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