Thank you very much for joining us on, for our first quarter 2023 results briefing. We have on today's panel is Helen Wong, our CEO, and Ms. Goh Chin Yee, our CFO, and Quentin, which is our Head of Investor Relations. On the line we have Chania from Bloomberg and Anna from . We can start with Chin taking us through the slides.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome, and thank you for joining us for our first quarter 2023 results presentation. We announce our results this morning, and we are pleased to start 2023 with a record quarter. I will now share more details of our results. Let's turn to slide four.
For the first quarter 2023, group net profit reached a new high of SGD 1.88 billion, an increase of 39% from the same period last year, and 44% above the previous quarter. Net profit from banking operations also registered strong growth to a record SGD 1.68 billion. Total income climbed 12% quarter-on-quarter to a new high of SGD 3.35 billion, underpinned by the group's diversified income streams across banking, wealth management, and insurance. Against the record level in fourth quarter 2022, net interest income was 2% lower, largely due to a shorter first quarter 2023. NIM was resilient at 2.30%. Cost to income ratio was 37.1%, the lowest level in about a decade. We continue to be prudent in risk management.
Credit costs of 12 basis points were lower quarter-on-quarter, and our loan growth was sound, with NPL ratio improving to 1.1%. With our strong performance, return on equity rose to 14.7%, a multi-year high. Moving on to slide five. Our banking operations net profit rose 28% from a quarter ago and 43% year-on-year to a record SGD 1.68 billion. The group's wealth management business continued to perform well. Wealth management income increased 33% quarter-on-quarter, driven by growth across our wealth franchise. AUM grew to SGD 270 billion, underpinned by continued momentum in net new money inflows across all wealth segments and positive market valuation. Net new money fresh funds for the quarter was about SGD 10 billion.
Total weighted new sales and new business embedded value, NBV for short, for our insurance business declined year-on-year due to lower single premium sales from Singapore. This was compensated partially from better performance in regular premium sales. NBV margin improved to 43.4% from the shift in our insurance product mix. Moving on to slide six. We continue to maintain a healthy balance sheet position with all regulatory ratios well above requirements. Our capital is strong, and our liquidity positions are healthy. These provide ample buffer for uncertainties and allow us to pursue growth opportunities as they arise. Moving on to our key performance slides, starting from slide eight. As shared earlier, profit from both the group and banking operations were at record levels.
Group operating profit before allowances rose 24% quarter-on-quarter, crossed SGD 2 billion for the first time, driven by income growth and lower expenses. Let's move to more details on the drivers of our net interest income on slide nine. Against the first quarter last year, group net profit of SGD 1.88 billion was 39% higher. The strong rise in earnings came on the back of a 56% increase in net interest income. Compared to the previous quarter, our 44% increase in net profit was from a combination of recovery in non-interest income as well as a decline in expenses and allowances. Moving to Slide 11 on our net interest income. Net interest income for the quarter was SGD 2.34 billion, more than 50% above last year.
Compared to the record level in fourth Q of last year, it was 2% lower, primarily because our first quarter 2023 was comparatively shorter than the previous quarter. If adjusted for the shorter days effect, net interest income was largely unchanged. Net interest margin, or NIM, was 2.3%, one basis point below the previous quarter. This was due to two reasons. First, while asset use increased, this was offset by an expected catch-up in our funding costs, which we highlighted in our previous results briefing. Second, loans to deposit ratio was lower as deposit growth outpaced that of loans. Our exit NIM for the quarter was 2.31%. Turning to the next slide. For the first quarter 2023, non-interest income was SGD 1.41 billion, higher than the previous quarter.
The improvement was led by a rise in our fee and trading income, as well as net realized gains from sale of investment securities. The group's insurance profit for this quarter was reported based on SFRS 17, which GEH adopted on first January 2023. Prior comparatives are not restated. With the implementation of SFRS 17 by GEH, insurance profit is expected to be less volatile due to the reclassification of insurance assets and liabilities to fair value to other comprehensive income or FVOCI for short. This will remove a significant portion of previously observed volatilities from the valuation of insurance assets and liabilities. More details on the impact of SFRS 17 and the restated comparative information will be disclosed in our first half 2023 announcement. Turning to next slide.
Fee income increased by 14% from the prior quarter to $453 million. This was mainly driven by a 37% rebound in wealth management fees, reversing the declines observed over the last few quarters. There was an encouraging recovery in investment sentiments during the quarter, with increased sales across most wealth management product categories. Turning to Slide 14. Trading income was $251 million, up 69% from the last quarter. The strong growth in trading income was a result of recovery in customer flow income and higher non-customer flow trading income from mark to market gains of our equities and debt securities portfolio. Next slide on operating expenses.
Operating expenses declined 4% from a quarter ago to SGD 1.24 billion, mainly from a decline in other expenses arising from the reduction of insurance related expenses against insurance revenue following GEH adoption of SFRS 17. Staff costs were higher, reflecting our ongoing investment in our talent pool to support business expansion. Cost to income ratio was 37.1% for the quarter. Moving to next slide on allowances. Total allowances for the quarter were SGD 110 million, with about half comprising general provisions and half in specific provisions. These were substantially lower than the SGD 314 million total allowances in fourth quarter of 2022, mainly due to comparatively higher general provisions set aside last quarter. Total credit costs eased quarter-on-quarter to 12 basis points. Next slide.
Our NPA coverage ratio improved by 7 percentage points from the last quarter to 121% from an increase in cumulative allowances and decline in non-performing assets. Moving to Slide 18 for more details on our non-performing assets. Our portfolio quality remained resilient. NPAs continued to trend lower as at March 2023. Compared to the previous quarter, total NPAs were 5% lower at SGD 3.3 billion, with declines across our key markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Greater China. NPL ratio improved by 0.1 percentage points from last quarter to 1.1%. Moving next to Slide 18. For the first quarter 2023, higher recoveries and upgrades more than compensated for new NPA formation. New NPA formation was lower Q on Q across both the corporate and consumer book. Moving next to Slide 20.
Loans grew 0.2% from the previous quarter and 3% from last year in constant currency terms to SGD 204 billion. Our loan portfolio remained well-diversified across geographies as well as industries. Given broader concerns on the commercial real estate sector in developed markets such as the U.S., I would like to share more information on our commercial real estate or CRE loan portfolio. TRE loans are mostly to network customers in our key markets with proven track records and financial strength, and are largely to support economic expansion and population growth. Our overall LTVs are low and are mostly secure. We continue to play a key role in our customers' transition to a low carbon economy, with sustainable financing loans growing 33% year on year to SGD 32 billion, making up 11% of our group loans. Moving next to customer deposits.
Our customer deposits of SGD 367 billion were 5% over last quarter as well as the previous year. This was driven by strong growth in fixed deposits from CASA migration and in particular fresh funds placed with us, which reflected OCBC's strength and trust in us. Accordingly, our CASA ratio trended lower below 50%. The group's liquidity remained ample, LDR or loan deposit ratio headroom is supportive of our future growth. Moving to next slide on capital position. Our core CET1 or core equity tier one ratio rose 0.7 percentage points from the last quarter to 15.9%, mainly driven by profit acquisitions. Excluding our 2022 final dividend to be paid next week, CET1 would be 15.1% on a pro forma basis.
Our strong capital condition is supportive of business growth and allow us to navigate uncertainties as well as to capture opportunities as they arise. Moving next to Slide 23. I would like to provide more details on our government and debt securities holdings as there have been recent concerns on the banking sector's exposure to these globally. More than 90% of our government and debt securities portfolio are fair value, and mark-to-market movements have been reflected in the computation of our capital adequacy ratios. Above 80% of the total portfolio was classified as fair value through other comprehensive income or FVOCI. Year to date, our FVOCI fixed income securities portfolio has seen unrealized gains of about SGD 0.2 billion and our hold-to-maturity portfolio of SGD 65 billion has insignificant mark-to-market effect.
Overall, the average duration of our total government and debt securities portfolio is between one to two years. With this, I end my presentation and will now pass the floor over to Helen.
Thank you, Chin Yeong. Thanks, everyone, for coming to our office. I think there are also some of you dialing in on the phone. Thank you all for attending this session with us. I think Chin Yeong has given quite a detailed presentation on our financial numbers for the first quarter of this year. I'll just add on with two slides to show some of the highlights and the points that I may want to comment on, and what's the feel about the business, and also how we look at going forward to the rest of the year.
Just turning to that slide two, we look at as Chin Yeong said, we have a record high total income operating profit before allowances and also a net profit. These are all record high. I'm happy to say that this is despite some of the global volatilities that we have seen, in particular for the developed market and in certain parts of the banking sector. I think the robust performance also reflects where we are, that we call ourselves a leading Asian bank with a network in the rest of the world, predominantly in ASEAN and Greater China. Also reflect our franchise in banking, insurance and wealth.
Just want to comment a bit on the net interest income. We say this is second highest on record, supported by resilient NIM. This is very important, because we are talking about last quarter four, of 2022, we have an average NIM of 2.31%. This quarter, we're at 2.3%, so a 1 basis point drop. That means that we've been managing our balance sheet, in particular our funding costs, quite well in order to achieve that. This is important as we in January look at interest rate have peaked and it will go. We do have assumption that it will go stable without.
I think that the chances we're looking at assumption that we do not see interest rate reduction this year in the rest of the year. That is the assumption we work on as we continue to work on our balance sheet and how we support our business and protect the NIM. That's how we look at NIM. On the wealth management side, we do see a rebound in customer activities across our wealth management business as investment sentiments do come back a bit in the first quarter. It's important to say that that momentum, I wouldn't say it is coming back strongly as yet, because of, we say again, the volatilities of the financial markets, yeah.
Important is that we are seen as a point of strength, that we are highly rated bank. We do see net new money inflows this quarter across private banking, Premier private, and also Premier Banking segments of something of a net inflow of SGD 10 billion. Which is a sizable amount, which we want to be able to keep and maintain. Eventually, as investment sentiment come back, we can offer the products and utilize this increase in our AUM.
As to the on the expenditure side, I also want to mention that we are disciplined, but as again, we continue to invest into our people and into our digital infrastructure, so that it's part and parcel leading back to a more effective process for our customers. In particular, I think we talked about deposits all the time. CASA is important that we allow our customers very a lot of ease to operate their operating account and to open new account with us, that so we can then protect our deposit base as well, with more operating accounts rather than people really just look for yield and park everything into fixed deposit. I think that investment continue to be important.
Likewise, we are expenses for the first quarter is quite well maintained. On the loan side, I think due to uncertainties and also economic situation and a still a looming fear of recession, we see trade not rebounding as much. Hopefully trade will increase as China open up and the supply chain come back a bit more to normal. We have indeed focused very much on non-trade corporate loans in areas which we have actually seeing opportunities and that offer quality. Examples are like energy and utilities, and of course, are very much related to sustainable financing. Real estate segments like accommodation and technology and digital infrastructure. These are the segments that we managed to grow.
In a way, we also talk about geopolitical tensions affecting economic growth, right? In that sense, we do see opportunities of banking more multinational companies in this region. As competitors from the West are less in a way, less competitive now in Asia. We do see opportunity like that. Housing loans, Singapore remains to be our biggest mortgage market. We also saw a slight increase in the first quarter, supported by drawdowns from a very strong existing pipeline. Although we do note that the cooling measures, the recent cooling measures, may dampen mortgage sales. I think this year we still look to be okay.
Of course, it depends on how the rest of the year unfold as we continue to build our mortgage pipeline. Overall, first quarter loan growth relatively muted, but partly due to lower short-term trade loans, but compensated by a slight growth in mortgages and also in our corporate loans. Our asset quality is benign. No signs of systemic issues so far. We continue to do stress test and, depending on what we see in the market, we look with a forward-looking, we do certain sectors we stress more. For example, recently we do look at whether there's any contagion effects from regional banks in the U.S. We don't have exposure. Of course, we look at how that impact U.S. dollar liquidity, and we stress it accordingly.
We have also continued to look at pockets where we think that potentially will be impacted more by recession and/or inflationary risks. We accordingly stress test our book. We continue to have prudent level of allowances, but also our NPA, our NPA coverage ratio is above 120%, as illustrated in the slides that Goh Chin Yee has gone through in more details. Flipping the page, looking ahead, I think we are well positioned. Important thing is that key market in Asia expected to stay resilient. Yes, in this Singapore is growing slower, but there are also some patches of brighter sectors. I think services industry is doing well. Singapore continue to be a safe hub and maintain a safe hub status.
That's where we think the wealth of AUM potentially can grow even more in the rest of the three quarters. Malaysia, Indonesia, they are growing above our global average. Greater China, we see more confidence coming back as COVID is behind and also with multiple government measures to stimulate eco-economic recovery. We see the May holidays, a lot of traveling, and though including domestic and traveling overseas as well. Hong Kong was quite crowded. I was told, and a colleague told me he was trying to drive out of Shanghai, then for four hours he's still in the core of Shanghai City because of the traffic all going out when people want to enjoy that holiday.
I mean, having said all that, we have to, and we will continue to closely monitor the market volatilities, right? Tightening financial conditions around the world have slowed down inflation, but also likely to dampen global growth. Indeed, we're watchful of increase in overall risk and volatilities arising from, as I said, pockets of issues and in developed markets, such as the banking sector, which I mentioned earlier on, and commercial real estate in the developed markets. Ongoing political tensions, it's will continue to be there, will continue to impact the landscape. We are well-positioned and indeed, as I said earlier, there could be more opportunities for us if the political tension continues.
Customers, some of even the MNC, for their China plus one strategy in Asia, do look at the support of a strong Singapore bank. These are opportunities amidst the volatility and the tension. We do want to change some of our targets indeed as we look into how the first quarter has unfolded. The NIM, we want to change it to the region of 2.2%. That would indicate from 2.3% in the first quarter we see a general decline in that. The reason being that I think the loan book, you do have to not have a lot of potential to reprice it upwards. The funding costs will continue to catch up.
Which is a natural phenomenon in a rapidly rising interest rate environment. It will be lower, but we think that it could be in the region of 2.1%-2.25 instead of the 2.1% guidance we previously provided in the last quarter. Our views, and this again, based on the view that interest rate has peaked. Indeed, we're not expecting a Fed cutting interest rate in the rest of the year. Our loan growth, given the experience in the first quarter and the volatility, we are saying now we expect loan growth to be low to mid-single digit. Whereas credit costs, we maintain at 15 basis points-20 basis points as a credit cost.
In general, in an environment like this, we do expect, generally, that NPL may rise in the rest of the year. We want to keep that by guidance on the credit cost. Our last point, I want to just mention sustainability. I think Jinli talked about outstanding on our book of sustainable financing represent 11% of the loan book, which is a 30-something% growth. Indeed, if we look at commitment is at SGD 47 billion, which is very close to our target of SGD 50 billion. I'm not adjusting this, because it's still another 2+ years into 2025. That doesn't stop our focus on helping our customers to transition into net zero.
It's not just the corporate, it's not just the SMEs. Also one point, one example I want to highlight is, we have been launching what we call Eco-Care Loans to our retail customers since 2021 and we have seen good trajectory. Also we have built SGD a couple of billions on that portfolio already. Also helping the retail segment. Coming up with our net zero white paper. We talk about how we look at it as we have joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, we're going to make some announcement. I think, Jinli, we have already invited the media.
actually not today.
Okay. Today.
Today.
Coming up.
We're going to confuse them with results.
Yeah. Coming up. Yes. I think I'll just stop here. Jinli.
Thank you, Helen. Now open to the floor for questions. It's Jovi Ho from The Edge.
Thanks for the presentation. I'm Jovi Ho from The Edge. I think my first question is just about your, can I have more color about the NIM outlook? I think you mentioned this is price hiking upwards to the region of 2.2% for the rest of the year, right? Compared to UOB, which forecast 2.1%-2.2%, DBS is 2.05%-2.1%. Can you give me some reasons behind why you price upwards for this expectation for the rest of the year? Why this relative optimism compared to the other banks?
I wouldn't call it optimism. It's like because we have a higher starting point. You remember last year, our the fourth quarter, we are at 2.31%, whereas the PS, I mean, generally we don't comment on PS, but we have a higher starting point. I wouldn't say it's optimism. It's what we see in how we manage our balance sheet lead us to a 2.3% in the 1st quarter. To an extent, 2.1% would not be a natural conclusion for the whole year. That's why we adjusted. Also to give that feedback to our shareholders, to our stakeholders to show that this is actually how we see. Also again, based on some of the assumptions.
Mm-hmm.
Right? I think last year the loan assumptions is that Fed will cut interest rates beginning third quarter. We're seeing that the assumption is now they won't. It's reflecting how we see and how we project our balance sheet to look like.
Sorry. I think, just imagine a reskilled loan book, it's some areas that are impacted more than others with the recession. You mentioned stress tests for certain areas. Which areas are these? Can you give me more color about this?
I think we look at certain, you know, the banking sector, whether there's any spillover impact into Asia. We do look at developed market commercial real estate because I think banking real estate is always closely linked together. We do have commercial real estate exposure in the developed markets, namely in the UK, US, and Australia, yeah. I think this, that we look at this actively. In a way, stress testing is also testing on how you counter if there is a liquidity drain in the marketplace as well. I think these are some of the increase.
I mean, we do stress tests, all the time. As we said that, there are pockets that may have issue, then we will do further stress test and stress a bit more on that. For example, even on mortgages. We're seeing that, tightening measures and all that, and we would always assume and test a bit more on the debt repayment capabilities of our mortgage book as well.
Maybe I take Chris Gajilan first, then I'll go to Chanya.
Okay. Congrats on the results. Question about, GP is quite a lot lower than the fourth quarter, why is it so different than expecting some stresses in the banking sector globally and tightening financial conditions as well?
Actually, in the reverse, we must say, we actually look forward earlier. In the fourth quarter, we do make some general provisions on real estate, which we did explain when we were talking about the fourth quarter results. In a way, we have done quite a bit prior, I think, to the beginning of the year. When you look at this quarter, we still have a mixed provisions on general, make general provision. Specific provision, we do not see a lot of stress. As we look at our books, our quality is still quite good. I think that explains the reason why we seems to have a lesser provision in the first quarter compared to the fourth.
Okay. Maybe we can take a question from Chanya, who is in Hong Kong right now. Chanya?
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes. I have Helen, congratulations on the numbers and also the stock that rally for you this morning. I have three questions. The first one for clarification. The growth opportunities that you mentioned in your comment, could you please help clarify whether there's any M&A included in that at all? Second question, did OCBC or Bank of Singapore sell any Credit Suisse AT1 bonds to customers? Any number of losses involved on the clients side?
Is that 3 questions? I wrote down 2.
I just realized that you have replied.
Oh, okay.
I am questions. Sorry.
Thank you, Chanya. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Growth opportunities. M&A is something we do look at opportunities all the time. Nothing specifically we can talk about at the moment. We still continue to be interested in our core markets in our core business and our fran-- that has a complementary effect on our franchise. On the CS AT1, we have very few clients who have an exposure. Actually, that is so insignificant, I can't tell you a number, but it's very insignificant. Somebody may ask me whether I have margin calls. That is I can say no margin calls, which reflect how little that is in that sense.
I see. I see. Thank you. Got it.
Okay.
Sorry, just one last thing about the ROE, which is quite high at 14%, for the first quarter. Do you see that being sustained for the rest of the year?
Chanya, that's quite a complicated question because on the equity side, the amount, if you want to go deeper, Jin Lee can talk about what impact that equation, you know, return on equity. But I think the important thing is that we want to continue to have the business momentum that we protect the income, right? Income grow a lot because of very largely NII. We need to protect our NIM, especially when we say in a market of uncertainty that the loan book is not to grow substantially, yeah?
Mm.
But I hold to that. I did talk about we want to hold our ROE above 12%. I'm not going to change that. Whether it will be 14 end of year, it's, there's various factors affecting it.
I see. I see. Sorry, just one last thing, about the inflows in AUM that you mentioned. Could you share whether there's any or much coming from Credit Suisse?
Chanya, sorry, we don't comment on a certain counterparty. I think there is flows in general across our network. If you ask me, yes, continue to have flow from Greater China, Indonesia, and domestically as well. The flow is not entirely into Bank of Singapore as well. We have very decent flow, into our CFS business, into Premier Private, and also into Premier. I think I'll cover that much. Thank you.
That's very kind. Thank you, Helen. Bye.
Thanks, Chanya. Okay, go to Richard from Zaobao.
Hi, Helen. I found that actually, you know, you normally don't give the target for the income growth. Could you give us some guidance about this year? Would you still continue to double-digit growth in this year?
That's the plan. That's the plan. A lot depends also on the market situation. For example, if trade in Asia resume quite a bit, then of course your trade fees will increase, right? If investment sentiment is better, then of course, the wealth news will also increase. It quite depends on how the rest of the year unfold. Compared to previous years, I think that's what we are planning for. We hope that it will be double digits growth.
Thank you, Michelle. Did Michelle provide the answer?
Oh, sure. Let's just read it. Yeah.
Hi, Helen. It's congrats again. I wanted to ask, because I know that credit costs have eased at this point, do you foresee a rise in general provisions? Have you increased your management overlay considering both, your looking with the portfolio and because overlays as well?
Right. The first one is, it has eased. Do I see what the trend, right?
The second part is management overlay.
Yeah.
The first one is whether you can see a rise in general provisions.
Okay.
The second one is whether you have increased your management overlay.
Okay. The first one, yes, I do see in general a rise, and that's why we're saying that we keep... At the, at this point, we still want to keep our credit costs to be 15 credit costs-20 credit costs, whereas first quarter is 12 credit costs. If you do look at our credit costs, I think that's a detailed slide on how provisions and NPL has changed. That throw some light on why the first quarter is 12 credit costs. As I said, when we say in general, we do expect it to rise. It's because, as we said, recession is still looming, inflationary pressure is still there. Customers action are quite cautious. All this together, we do expect provision to rise. Management overlay, we did some in the fourth quarter.
Also this quarter, we put in some as well. For, as I said, for commercial real estate in developed markets. We do this, from time to time, and we adjust it. In a way, always, remember to be forward-looking. Do something a bit earlier rather than, rather than say when it happens, then suddenly the amount jumps up very high.
Yeah, sure.
Thanks for the question again. I think, building on that, you mentioned we've covered commercial real estate a couple of times. A number of properties, including office buildings in Hong Kong, have been repossessed by banks there. I think that, DBS's Q&A, they've mentioned some stress in the Hong Kong commercial real estate as well. What is exposure to these sectors, given that, S-REITs or U.S. property, some S-REITs with Chinese assets are already facing pressure as well. What's the knowledge on this matter about Hong Kong's office buildings and real estate there?
I need to recap to say that I did mention that we are talking about focus on the weakness, right? It doesn't mean that I'm very concerned about real estate portfolio. It's not like that. If you look at our book, our real estate is about 30% of our total book. More than 80% is to our network customers. When we say network customers, are customers that actually have a relationship with us over many, many years. We serve them in Singapore, in Hong Kong, and also around the world where they have investments overseas, for example. In that sense, a lot of the real estates are secure.
I think most of it, large part is secure, and the weighted LTV is about 50%. In a way, the quality is good. It's just that if we do expect weakness, we want to be more sure that we test the book accordingly. You know that sometimes, when we provide general provision, it is based on economic data, right? We adjust our NNPLs. This is how we look at the commercial real estate portfolio. In general, we see no systemic risk there.
Any other questions?
Yeah, sure. Question.
May I ask what the average duration of your loans are and your available for sale portfolio? Also, how large is your AFS portfolio on your balance sheet? Lastly, how much of your loan portfolios are due to be repriced in the next 12 months- 18 months?
Why don't you start with Chiou-Ping?
Yeah, sure. I think in terms of the loan portfolio, I think by and large, it reprices every three months. The bulk of the loan portfolio, I think roughly 90% in one way or other, is on a floating rate, you know, SOR, SORA, you know, and so on and so forth.
With a shift to SORA, there will be perhaps a shortening in the repricing. Yeah.
In SORA, you know, Well, I mean, the overnight rates. Yeah.
Sorry, Patricia, did we answer all your questions?
Uh.
You have actually quite a number of them. Make sure we got it.
AFS.
AFS, yeah.
Actually, for AFS, I think we sort of portfolio, right? sorry. You talk about AFS. We are talking about available for sale. For sale, we are talking about our... Yeah. If you look at our available for sale, you know, we actually share part of that, you know. We have, AFS, portfolios, government debt securities, you know, 90% of that are actually in terms of, fair value to other comprehensive income, yeah. Then on the side, on the hold to maturity part, it's very, very small. Like SGD 5 million. Yeah. Then you also asked about the sort of,
You asked more about how much of the loan portfolios are yet to be repriced.
Yeah. yes, under that-
Okay. Joey, you.
Sure. Those are the questions. My first one is for insurance. I think this IFRS 17, I understand that you'll be explaining in further detail at the next company briefing. What can you tell us about the impact so far? Are there any similarities we can extrapolate from maybe the introduction of the 16 cycle, two years ago, sorry, many years ago, 2019, January 2019? Are there any trends you can see from the introduction of that with in 2019 compared to now? My second question is about the sustainable loan book, right? I know that you won't be shifting the SGD 50 billion target anytime soon. Why is that? Also, you mentioned the Eco-Care Loans, I understand that they don't contribute to the SGD 60 billion target.
Are they separate targets or are they separate focuses for the sustainable loan book and OCBC?
Okay. Maybe insurance, Chin, you want to start? I will handle the second one.
For the insurance, with the adoption of SFRS 17, going forward, we'll be seeing less volatility in terms of the revaluation of insurance assets and liabilities. With the adoption of SFRS 17, you know, some of this portfolio, right, it will move from fair value to PNL to fair value to OCI. The volatility will be removed from the PNL side. It's what you all have seen last quarter, right? You have the revaluation mark-to-market kind of loss. Yeah. That will be one major effect of the SFRS 17 adoption. Yeah.
I think it's maybe the second layer would be the change in how they earn their income.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we also sort of mention the reason for the decline, right, in our operating expenses, 4%, for the group level, you know, compared to the previous quarter. One of the main reason was because of reclassification of GEH operating expenses relating to agency and sales commission, as well as claims being reclassified net of insurance revenue. It disappeared from the operating expense line and moved up, you know, to be a net of the insurance revenue. That's one of the effect of SFRS 17 as well.
On sustainable financing, you're right, Eco-Care Loans is not in our target of 50 billion. I illustrate that just to say that whenever we talk about supporting climate change, or not supporting, we're saying that we are combating climate change. We want to have an overall proposition. We talk quite a lot about supporting the corporates, and we talk about supporting SMEs. I just want to round it up to say that we also focus on the retail. In a way, we also focus on ESG investment as well, and how we look at our clients handling ESG.
Why I'm not changing that target yet is because I think through the number of years, we now know exactly how to make the best of it in handling, in helping our clients to combat climate change. We're very focused to continue to support our clients in many ways. In particular, we talk about, I mean, we are thinking about net zero, right? And also about ourselves, how we actually make ourselves emitting less carbon as well. The target becomes something that is always set and actually be reaching actually much earlier on. This is a crucial stage to tell everybody now, because we are SGD 47 billion, I will reset it.
What I'm saying is, this become very business as usual to us, that we will continue to grow our sustainable financing. Yeah. If we continue to grow like double digit every year, actually that last quarter was at 30 something %, obviously whatever target you set becomes a little bit just a number to be beaten.
I mean, Julian, yeah.
Can we get a view, like a broad view, from you on what's happening in the global banking sector right now? What happened to First Republic and all, and how does, like Asian bank like OCBC, benefit from all this, what's happening and the impact?
That's a very big subject. I think we can read so much from around the world, all the reports and all that. I think banking sector has always been evolving, right? If you look at banking industry, it has very different stages over decades. I think the last most major impact was The world financial crisis back in 2008, right? So I think what happens in the regional banks in the US does reflect on the problems created by very rapidly rising interest rate environment.
I think for banking, the lesson to learn is really whether you're too concentrated on a certain sector, whether your deposit base is not diversified enough, and what do you invest in on behalf of clients and on behalf of yourself when you have. We are in the business of managing that deposit and that liquidity, right? I think these are all the important lessons learned. It's not just bank learning it. It's really like government learning it, regulators learning about it as well, right? In a way, of course, we ourselves do a lot of analysis. Whether there will be more banks having problems, we cannot tell. We are not really active in that market. We're just mindful, what if...
what if something continue to happen, how does that actually impact? That's why I don't want to bring it up all again, I said commercial real estate. because that is banking lend to commercial real estate, right? banks have a problem, of course, that reflects immediately on it. It's. COVID has a lot of impact on production, manufacturing, healthcare and all that already. you look at it, what are the. It's like coming back to COVID. Immediately you look at hospitality, you look at traveling, right? You look at services, because lockdown. when we see something happen in other parts of the world, we immediately think about, is there any contagion effects to the rest of the world.
I think so far, the dust has settled quite a bit, and I think government reacted really fast. I think regulators in this region also come out to say something. You would imagine we also have a lot of communications with our regulators around the key markets in particular, that we have more sizable operation. I can't predict what's going to happen next. Over the years, in particular after the GFC, the crisis, and obviously banks, the way banks handle our business and look at risk and stress testing and capital, become ever more of paramount importance. To an extent, I would say you would rather that a bank has the higher capital and better liquidity management than a bank that does not have that, in that sense.
I think COVID does prove that what we have as a capital, as our capital position, was actually help us to maintain, of course, our credit rating. I think that credit rating doesn't come from just saying that because Singapore is a triple A, that's why the bank have to be double A. It's not like that. It's because we really is managing our position very well so that we can continue to support our customers through harsher times.
Okay. Maybe one last question.
Yeah.
Do you see any changes in your efforts, viability management, since you mentioned the fast pace of rate hikes last year that led to the stresses in the U.S. financial system?
I would just say everyday thing.
Oh, okay.
That is an everyday thing, if you ask, Chin Yee her department in particular. It's an everyday thing. With interest rate rising so much, there is so much more discussion involving everybody, right? In particular, how do you fund our loan book, as we want to grow? What is, what are the currencies that are under more stress now than the other currency, right? How does each. Actually, interest rate hike doesn't impact every country the same, right? You look at China actually at a lower interest rate environment. It impact HIBOR or SIBOR differently as well. You talk about, how do we manage our investments, which Chin Yee mentioned on that very last page, right?
Do we adjust the duration and do we adjust and put more into hold to maturity, et cetera. This is, as we said, a very constant discussion among all. In a way, how do you balance out your funding costs, leads to fixed deposit strategy, leads to CFS strategy, leads to how we attract our customers. It's also related to how do we protect ourselves in the SME field as well. It's important because our SME deposits is actually more than 20% of our CASA. These are very important customers because they really hold their operating cash with you. That means your digital offering has to be good so that they can manage their money very efficiently.
Okay. Okay, Jovi now.
Sorry. Just another question. Yeah. Your CET1 has been steadily growing over the past year. What are some considerations behind this, and what is the impact of transitional Basel IV on your CET1? Is there a CET1 that's too high in your view, and what would this mean for dividends going forward?
A big question again. I'll start with why it grows. Why it grows is because we also grow our business, so we have more profits, right? That's one thing. In particular, I think we bounce back from the COVID year 2020 really fast. 2021 already close to our record high in 2019, and then we make a record high last year. That's. First thing is how we do business and engage our customer. Second thing is we continue to manage our RWA.
Yeah.
very effectively. Part of the contribution to a high CET1 is because of that. Is that ever too high? Yes, we do have, we do think that we need to operate our capital effectively, efficiently.
Mm-hmm.
We need to look after our shareholders as well. That's why you see that we also commit to change our dividend policy. That means we at least dividend out at least 50% of the profit. In the past we are around 40 something, right? That's already a move to make sure that we also look after our shareholders by distributing more from our capital. Of course, in market of uncertainty, you would generally want to hold on to a bit more. I did talk about hopefully in the next short to medium term, we'll effectively use the capital to bring it down, the CET1 to down to about 40%.