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Earnings Call: Q2 2016
Jul 19, 2016
So hey, people, and welcome to this presentation of the new Nudnet Q2 Interim Report. I believe we can report a reasonably good quarter. We see a steady and healthy growth on our drivers, good on new active customers, okay in net savings and really good in lending. Though operating income is down and hence profit after tax is down, which we of course are not happy with. Next slide please.
So as I said, operating income is down for the quarter by 1%. And since we have taken up costs from Q2 'fifteen, that gives a consequence of profit after tax down 20%. If we look on the half year though, operating income decreased by 5%. And if you do the math, then Q2 is relatively better than Q1 compared to 2015. Next slide please.
Some highlights from the Some highlights from the quarter. We launched mortgage in Sweden and with the lowest at that point in time, the lowest interest rate at 79 basis points that has been well received. And year to date, we have paid out approximately SEK250 1,000,000. We have again in Denmark being appointed Stock Broker of the Year by Danske Aktioner Freining and also Best in Test by PENK better return than having them in the Treasury portfolio. And we start to see some leverage of the volume growth.
If you look upon back on the quarters, previously it's been off the volume growth has been offset by lower and lower interest. But now we can see that we get some leverage in the revenues of the volume growth, which is really good. We have also introduced a get started account in Swedish market with free trading for new savers, an initiative to lower the thresholds for Swedes to enter the savings markets Next slide, please. And next slide again. So let's talk about customers and accounts.
So on a company level, we see a 12 month growth in customers of 13%. Still Denmark is the star in the growth customers with 32%, followed by Norway and Finland both on 14 percent and Sweden by 9%, which is actually 50 percent better than we experienced in Sweden in Q2 2015, which is really good. So our efforts are starting to pay off in Sweden also. And we also see an effect on initiatives that we are carrying out right now. We're rebuilding the onboarding new customer process new customer process for all markets with the aim of increasing conversion rates.
And we are also in the midst of implementing more real time money transfers, giving us giving our customers the opportunity to in real time transfer money from their other banks into their new net accounts. And that will be launched. We're in the test phase right now and that will be launched during summer. Next slide please. Another driver, as you know, is net savings.
We experienced a total now on company level of 6%. In Sweden, it's actually negative due to the outflow from the Cerdobanian Partner Decreased Partnership. Norway, we have 18% Norway, we have 18% growth in net savings Denmark in the lead of 26% and Finland actually is not surprisingly, but better than we have experienced the previous years with a growth level of 4%. If we adjust for the outflow on the Cerbere partner partnership, we have a company level growth on net savings of 9%, which is okay. We know we can do better, but given the circumstances, okay.
Next slide please. So activity is lower than in the quarter, is lower than Q1, but still good and quite significantly higher than Q2 2015. It's actually 23% reflects the change in trading pattern we already spoke about in Q1 with customers doing smaller trades. This is partly driven by our price model change in the Swedish market in the mid of 2015, but also more cautious behaviors as we see this pattern in all four markets. And Jacob will elaborate more on this later in the presentation.
Next slide, So lending, we're really happy about healthy growth in our existing credit products, margin lending and personal loans, roughly up year on year 20% on both. Margin lending is down from Q1, but has held up good given the market conditions. And starting this quarter, we now report on mortgage and as I said roughly SEK 250,000,000 paid out. Next slide, please. And with that, I hand over to Jacob.
Thank you, Hakan.
Get the next slide, please, operator. We'll look at the revenues, and we'll start out by looking at the trends by quarter. Revenues for the 2nd quarter totaled NOK 293,500,000. That's 2% lower than Q1 and 1% lower than the same period last year. Let's go through the main components of our revenue.
The blue part of the bar, net interest income, shows a stable development, slightly higher than the previous quarter. The trends within NII are very similar to what we've seen in the past, meaning healthy volume growth, but mostly offset by lower interest rates. Our volume growth year on year in both personal loans and margin lending, as Hakan just mentioned, is around 20%, which we're very happy with. Rates, however, are lower in both products, and it's both a consequence of lower rates in the market in general. But in the case of personal loans, it's also due to us growing fastest in the lower risk tiers where prices are lower.
Our mortgage product that was launched in Sweden during the quarter had a good start, almost 250,000,000 dollars paid out, and the pipeline of applications also looks very good. Its effect on net interest income in the quarter is small, but we expect mortgages to contribute as we move forward. Next part, the €138,000,000 and that includes €29,000,000 in commission on mutual funds, that's slightly down from Q1 and down 20% compared to the same quarter last year. Main reason for the lower level compared to Q2 'fifteen is the lower market valuation affecting savings capital in mutual funds on the platform. Transaction related commission income in Q2 totals almost €109,000,000 which includes €6,000,000 related to fee sharing from the Danish CSD for the 1st 6 months of this year.
We received this fee for the first time in December of last year, and we are now part of the system and understand it better. And we will accrue this item monthly as part of our other CSD fees, so it will be included in transaction revenue. Ultimately, it's dependent on the number of transactions we process. But right now, our estimate is that it will be around SEK800,000 to SEK900,000 per month, so just below SEK1 1,000,000 per month going forward. And it will be part of our running business.
Adjusting for these items, since it was not part of Q1 and comparing Q2 to Q1 of this year, we see transaction related commission down by 16%. And as you saw in an earlier slide, activity is lower in Q2 compared to Q1. Number of trades traded value are both down around 8%. Also commission per trade is down from SEK 21 per trade in Q1 to SEK 19 in Q2, again adjusting for the CDPs in Q2. We continue to see a shift compared to last year with customers trading smaller ticket sizes.
However, from Q1 to Q2 of this year, the main reason for the drop in commission for trade is the business mix between countries. Commission for trade right now is highest in Finland and Denmark, while Norway is lower and Sweden is the lowest of the 4 countries, and this follows the change in price plan that was made last year. During this quarter, we have seen an increase in the share of total NoveNet trading from Sweden and Norway, and that affects the average commission per trade for the group. Also in the quarter, we launched a new offer in Sweden aimed at savers just getting started with the savings, as Wokke just mentioned. These free trades explain SEK 10,000,000 to SEK 20,000,000 of the drop in net commission per trade.
So some impact from that, but still limited. So to sum up the development on commission, please. Year on year, we're affected by lower prices in Sweden and the smaller trade size across all markets, while quarter on quarter comparing Q1 to Q2, the mix between countries is a more significant part of the explanation. Other revenue mainly includes the result of FX transactions when customers trade outside their home markets, roughly level with the previous quarter despite lower volumes. The Brexit decision on Midsummer when Stockholm was closed and Copenhagen and Oslo were open that boosted foreign trading somewhat, but still apart from that event, fairly good quarter for FX.
Also included in other revenue is a delayed positive effect from the closing of our debit card offering a few years back. As part of closing that product, we redeemed our shares in Mastercard, which has given a capital gain of roughly SEK 5,000,000 that's included in other income in this quarter. That sums up revenues. If we move to the next slide, please. We'll look at expenses or costs.
And expenses, including credit losses amount to $207,000,000 for the quarter. It's an increase of $11,000,000 year on year, but slightly lower than the previous quarter. Given the market conditions and the weaker top line development, we are taking a much more cautious approach on the cost side. Looking at the next 3 to 4 quarters, we aim to maintain or reduce expenses from the level in Q2. Year on year, the cost base is mainly the increase in cost base is mainly related to investment in IT and product development.
Long term investments that we believe are important to maintaining and improving on our long term drivers of growth. We'll tread carefully, but given the situation right now, we're definitely reluctant to take on more costs. To be clear, our guidance for the calendar year 2016 remains 6% to 8% increase from 2015, but we're definitely aiming in the lower part of that range. But from the level where we're at right now and going forward, we're looking to maintain or decrease on the cost base. So a slight shift there, even though the effect for 2016 is within the guidance that we previously given.
All right. Moving to the next slide. Operating profit sums up the two previous slides. For the quarter, operating profit is €87,000,000 lower by 14% compared to the same period last year and down from the previous quarter by 3%. We'll go to the next slide.
This slide shows our business across the 4 markets. Nordland's customers Finland, and more than half of Nordland's customers reside outside of Sweden. Looking at the operating profit, the share from Denmark, Norway and Finland is increasing for 2016. So far, year to date, the 3 countries make up 44%, and that's more than double the ratio of 2 years ago. It was 19% in 2014.
We'll go to the next slide for a closer look at the income statement compared the same period last year. Next slide shows the income statement. Revenues for the 3 month period, April to June this year, are 1% lower, as we saw in the previous slide. We covered the main reasons earlier, but also in this slide, you see compared to the same period, fairly stable NII with commission income clearly lower. And while number of trades are up, traded value is more or less unchanged and commission levels are nowhere.
So that's the story there. Moving down to operating expenses, we see that there's an 8% increase compared to the same period last year, increase slightly mainly within general administrative expenses, which includes personnel and within other operating expenses, which includes marketing. Next is credit losses. They are all related to our personal loans business. Credit loss amounts to SEK 6,300,000.
It's a really good level given that we continue to grow our portfolio. Our loss rate is now as low as 1.2%, tiers, as we said earlier, and that will also affect losses. So looking ahead, while €6,000,000 is low, I don't expect losses to come back to the around €12,000,000 that we had the same period last year. Tax rate for the 4th quarter is 21% at 18.4 dollars 1,000,000, a profit for the period of SEK 68.5 billion to an EPS of SEK 39 for the quarter and a rolling 12 month period EPS of SEK 1.74 7.4 Moving on to the next slide. Just a quick look at the balance sheet.
Total assets have increased since 1 year ago to SEK 65,900,000,000. This increase in asset is mainly a consequence of deposits increasing, also increasing our assets and liabilities where policy hold bear the risk that's asset in our pension pension insurance products. The increase in deposits have mainly affected financial assets available for sale, that is our liquidity portfolio, also loans to the public increased since the end of Q2 last year. Further down, shareholders' equity amounts to 1,822,000,000, and that brings us to the next slide for a look at our capital situation. Go to the next slide, please.
We focus here on the consolidated situation for capital requirement, and that is where the CRR regulation with buffers primarily affect us. Starting from the top. Our capital base is made up of shareholders' equity with the usual items deducted. We have no subordinated debt at this time. The loan we did have 1 year ago has since been bought back.
Still, capital base has increased compared to last year and amounts to SEK 1,000,000,000 €174,000,000 at the end of the period. Risk exposure amounts for credit risk are lower compared to 1 year ago. Part of this is due to a different composition in our liquidity portfolio, but we have also during the quarter reviewed and corrected some of mitigations within our credit risk framework, which also has reduced the risk exposure amounts somewhat. Market risk, a little higher operational risk compared to last year, also higher. And that's since we used the basic method, which is based on our 3 year average revenues.
So our 20 15 revenues are higher than our 2012 revenues. That's the reason for the increase year on year in operational risk. All that gives us a total capital ratio of 16.2%, just above the range of 14% to 16% that we have communicated for our as a target for our capital ratio. That was the end of my prepared comments. I'll hand back to Hakan for a wrap up, and we'll take questions after that.
Hakan, back to you.
Thank you very much, Jacob. So next slide, please. So let's talk about what's next at node NET. And another next slide please. So Node NET is about growth and we have the ambition to grow in all markets and on all our drivers including lending.
Now we and we will continue to focus on lending. In Sweden, we have an outstanding loan offering with personal loans, mortgage and the knockout loan, our margin lending product. A product that we have in all four markets and now our customers can have that in Syk, NUK, DKK and Eurus, which is an outstanding offering. And we will continue to think if we can build out our loan offerings in the other markets. So lending will be a focus area for us going forward.
As Jacob said, we will maintain or even lower our execute on our growth strategy, super happy customers to increase brand awareness and to innovate, I. E. To come out with good things for our customers at a high pace. And that includes also to continuing our initiative called New Net Ventures, which aims at finding partnerships and also making possible to invest in FinTech website. So with that, we conclude the presentation and we open up
for And we have our first question from Peter Wallin from Handelsbanken.
I would like to Peter, I would like to start with the cost guidance. If you could elaborate a bit on what kind of actions or investments that you're so like choosing not to do right now? And also, what you would need to see in terms of activity or other events in the market in order to like go back to the kind of investment plan you previously had?
So what we've said previously is that if the market allows and the revenue allows us, we will continue to invest in IT and product development, right. So the market sentiment now doesn't give us that opportunity or we believe we should be very cautious. So a big part of our cost base is staff. So we are cautious about like external recruitments and we're holding back on that. On IT, we will continue to fill vacancies with external recruitment.
But otherwise, we are cautious. So the cost reductions we will see going forward will be mainly on staff.
Okay. But if you would consider something like the postponement or canceled investments that you're now talking about, do you think that will have any impact on your sort of like revenue potential
decrease over time, that can be the effect. But we believe that we can do this and take down, maintain the cost level and also reduce it somewhat without like changing the strategy or changing the pace in what we do things. Of course, if we had the opportunity to invest in more IT and product development people, we could increase the pace. But we believe that we can maintain the pace we have right now with
credit losses in the quarter, and you're saying that you're not expecting to come back to the 12 €1,000,000 So I mean a reasonable loan loss level assumption, would that be somewhere like 1% to 1.5% going forward compared to the 2.5 historically?
Yes. I think that's fair right now. I think, of course, with growth in the lower risk tiers, we also see lower interest rates and lower losses. So I think, yes, we around 1.5%. We've talked about 2%, 2.5%, but we've been significantly below that for some time.
And so probably 1.5% is maybe a better number, like you said, even though we've not set the target like that for ourselves, but it's more along what we expect right now.
But it is a consequence of the majority of the growth in the personal loans portfolio coming from the low risk segments. And that also gives a lower risk in the total portfolio of course and as consequence, lower credit losses.
Okay. And then if just a comment on what kind of you've said previously that there is a fierce competition in the consumer lending market, but you're still growing volumes and still sort of like having a better client mix. Do you think that that can continue?
Yes. I think so. I think personal loans business is an analytical game. We are good at analytics in building response models, building scorecards with high G and A factors discriminating risks and also to manage the loan brokers in terms of optimizing the kind of flow that we would like to have from them. So yes, I believe we can continue that growth without taking more risk.
Okay, great. Thank you. And then just a final question on sort of like brokerage or trading related commissions. Ticket values continue down, which is, I guess, to some extent, a slight mix effect. But if you just look based on experience, how quickly or how much is the ticket average ticket value related to general sentiment and risk appetite among investors?
It's hard to say really. If you look at the last 3, 4 years, we actually haven't seen so much variation in the ticket value. So it's hard to say. I think part of it is that the new structure of the price plan kind of favors smaller trades. So you'd have to do more small trades.
And part of it probably is like you're saying that a reflection of risk appetite. But how much that is, it's hard to say. So no really straight answer there.
So we have another question from Jake Hartehanser from Nordea.
I have a couple of detailed questions. Firstly, if we look at your capital position, the capital ratio is strengthened in the quarter due to credit risk rea declining in the quarter. Can you tell us a bit what is driving that?
Yes. Part of it, like
I said, is the composition of the liquidity portfolio, meaning if we hold bonds or government certificates, they have sort of lower risk weights in the portfolio. So that's part of it. But then we also have actually made some changes to the how we mitigate and just reviewed the how we treat some of balance sheet items and so forth. So there's some sort of structural change in that that comes in this quarter. But part is also just the setup of the yes, the setup of the liquidity portfolio.
So a bit of both.
Okay. And is that related to the fact that you actually have SEK 600,000,000 with the Central Bank for the first time, as I can see it.
That's yes, part of it. That's true. That's part of it.
And if you plan to keep that kind of level? Or can you put it in anywhere else where you don't have negative interest rates?
Yes, we could. So it's not in that yes, it's not that we sort of changed our sort of investment policy or anyway. It's more sort of the way we ended the quarter. So not a long term change there.
Okay. And the related question, can you explain how the capital requirements look for your mortgage loans? Because I you are using the standardized model, obviously, with the 35% fixed rate. But you as a difference to Avanza, you also take the savings or total assets for your clients as collateral for deduction from exposure amount, etcetera? And what do you expect the average risk rate will be for your part going forward?
It's still early, of course, because the volumes is pretty limited. So far, it's hard to say. But in this quarter, it's you say a reduction of almost like in the 30%, 40% reduction on of the amount. So instead of a 35% risk weighted, you end up, I don't know, maybe 20%, 25%.
All right. Perfect. And finally, I'm sorry if I missed this, but what's your I mean, can you give us any kind of indication what you plan to have in total mortgage lending by the end of this year or the end of next year? Or if you have any cap on how much you would like that to be?
Yes. We haven't set really a target. I mean what we said before is that SEK 2,000,000,000, SEK 2,500,000,000 is well within the liquidity we have right now. But we haven't set a specific target or a hard cap on it. So from these levels, we're happy to grow.
So we have another question from Petr Kosciakoff from Carnegie.
So a couple of questions, and I'll start off with Norway, where you mentioned the changes in commission rates. Can you just elaborate a bit on that and to what extent that has impacted the lower commission per trade that we saw in this quarter. Yes, I'll start off there.
So I think the price model and price adjustment that we did in the Swedish market roughly 1 year ago, right, that was a very clear also adjustment or a price decrease, right. So the adjustment that we have made in Norway is much more a price model change. And we don't really expect to see the same effects that we have seen we haven't seen and we don't expect to see those effects that we saw in the Swedish market. Okay.
Then just moving to the consumer lending business. It's grown 10% year to date. Is that the growth pace that you think that you will be able to or that you feel comfortable
contrary, we from us not taking any more risk. On the contrary, we see a lower risk in the total portfolio as a consequence of us growing the lower risk, the majority of the growth coming from the lower risk segment. And if that continues, we are comfortable, right. But then again, things can happen in the market, but our ambition remains to create double digit growth also in the personal loans business.
Okay. And then just as you mentioned, you will focus more on lending going forward and, to understand, offer new loan products in the other markets. Could that, for instance, be offering personal loans in the other markets as well? Do you have that liquidity or excess liquidity that you're able to offer those lending products in your other Nordic markets?
Yes, we do. It differs from the different markets actually, both in terms of the pre recs, in terms of all the conditions in which you can operate a personal loans business. And as you know, a very important pre rec is availability to information, which about individuals, which is best in Sweden, worst in Denmark, but reasonably or decent in Norway and Finland. And also given the deposit we have a lot of euros and it's really hard to get the return on our euro investments. So in that sense, if I would choose a market that would be Finland, right?
So we're but we're constantly exploring opportunities in all four markets.
And on that question and a follow-up on that. When you started off your personal loans business that you have now, you acquired Konslankidet in Sweden a couple years ago. Is that the way you would start offering personal loans in Finland or in Norway as well through an acquisition of an established company? Or would you start with the Grillefield operations?
We don't rule any alternative out. But if you me personally, I would go for an acquisition. But then again, that is like an opportunity that you can't really steer. But we are exploring both alternatives.
Okay. Understood. Then just one last question in terms of the IT interface and the investments that you're doing. From my understanding, you don't think that your modified cost guidance will have an impact on your IT development and to the pace that you'll be able to launch new products improve your interface. But going into the second half of this year, when roughly should we expect to see any larger changes in terms of your website?
I know that you're right that you made some changes or some changes that you've made are visible visible already now, and you will launch the possibility of moving money real time to your platform during the summer. But at what point will we see any larger changes?
I think we previously communicated roughly in Q3, but I would say on your question right now in the second half or more to the last quarter of this year.
Okay. I think I'm happy there.
So we have another question from Monica Hanfael from SEB.
Coming back to your focus on growing the lending business, will you prioritize personal lending or expanding the mortgage
offering? So we don't really prioritize between those 2. So in the exploring phase and we're also exploring could we kind of have the mortgage product travel in any way, right? Mortgage is done quite differently in the different Nordic countries. We need to be very cautious about like creating Nordic leverage or scalability.
But to your question, we are not ruling mortgage out. We're exploring that opportunity as well.
And a follow-up question is, what you competition within personal lending
as analytical capability, it is an analytical gain. It's about optimizing the flow from brokers. It's about building scorecards that discriminate risks. So the winner will be the ones who pick the right kind of customers upfront and take the right upfront decision. And some of you have heard me saying that the fierce competition we see in the Swedish market now and a lot of companies growing their business, it's the easiest thing in the world to grow an unsecured consumer lending business is just to take on more risk.
But that is not the sustainable way. But it's about it's an analytical game and we are well positioned to continue to grow without taking on more risk.
I think I can add
one thing there, Monika. Also, for us, sort of strategically, we have relatively cheap funding to address this market with them. You say right now that the strategic advantage is not so significant since money is cheap sort of for everyone. But in the long run, I think that also is something where we have a competitive edge. But right now, that I think it's more to them that it's a circumstance.
And also, I think we shouldn't underestimate the NuveNet brand. I mean, we are seeing and we are driving and redefining the financial world for the benefit of our customers. So we're seen as a good guy player in this field and that also goes for the lending
business. Okay. Thank you. And there's one question. How is your interest rate sensitivity?
Do you have like 100 basis points rate
rate? Yes. I mean, you could say there's always the all else equal caveat to this, but we have over SEK 20 SEK20 1,000,000,000 in the almost SEK20 1,000,000,000 in our liquidity portfolio and also roughly SEK 7,000,000,000 in the lending volume. So and most of that, there's some of the deposits are in savings account, but it's just smaller part of that. So it's well above SEK 200,000,000 if you just sort of do all else equal and add 1 percentage point higher interest rate.
So we would definitely benefit from that. Then, of course, it will not be all else equal in such environment. We might see our deposits go elsewhere and so forth, but definitely a high leverage to higher interest rates for non net.
So we have another question from Nicolas Magbietz from DNB.
Most of my questions have been asked, but I was just wondering if you could also give some more how you think about the cost guidance here that you're targeting and no growth in costs? What kind of horizon are we looking at here? Is it over the next few quarters or over the next couple of years? Or is it more dependent on the income environment? So as long as interest rates stay low or how do you think about that?
As we said, I mean, I think a couple of years is probably long horizon for us. So it will I mean, in that time frame, we will definitely be dependent on how revenues perform. But in a way, coming into this year, we had a view that we would continue to grow on the cost side, add more resources and sort of continue to increase pace of development. But with the 1st 6 months of the year behind us and where we are seeing the market head right now, we're sort of taking our foot off the gas a little bit and maintaining cost for the rest of this year, that is sort of that doesn't change the cost guidance for 20 16. But I think we should see this as sort of maybe a 2, 3, 4 quarter view right now.
So looking a bit into 'seventeen, the way it looks right now to us is that we'll maintain or reduce on the cost side. But it's even though it's not a decision we're making quarter to quarter, of course, some investments are over the longer term. But if we see these acquisitions in the market, we'll factor that in. But the way it looks right now and with the 46 behind us, we think that we're taking a more cautious approach.
Okay. And then just as a reflection, it seems like you changed foot quite quickly here, becoming much defensive on your growth and the chance to invest here over just the last couple of quarters. And you mentioned in earlier communication that you're targeting to increase growth, in particular in Sweden, but that doesn't seem to have materialized. Does that kind of imply that you're reducing that ambition now again and accepting that advances, continuing to grab larger market share than you are because that you don't simply see the possibility to continue to invest? Or how should we view this shift in, yes, your plans to invest that come rather quickly over the couple of last quarters?
Sorry, I was unclear. So we're not shifting focus. We're not shifting strategy. We're not shifting from our focus from Sweden. On the contrary, right, so we have now built up our product portfolio.
So we have a mortgage product. We have the best supermarket or certificate product. We have the best margin lending product, we have the best personal loans product and we have Sharerills. So we have a strong product portfolio or the strongest product portfolio in Sweden, I would say. And also we see now that our efforts are paying off since were not on double digit growth when it comes to customers, but we have 50% more growth in active customers we are addressing now in rebuilding the new customer onboarding process in order to increase conversion that will have a positive effect in Sweden.
And we also believe that the possibility for our customers to transfer real time in real time money from other banks. And also the renovation of our website is also addressing all four markets. But foremost, it's our Swedish customers that are longing for a modernized site. So no, we're not taking our focus on off from growth or from Sweden in particular.
We have another question from Peter from Carnegie.
Just one follow-up question from my side. In regards to launching new lending products, when roughly do you expect to have something out on that? Is it during Q3 or Q4 this year? Or should we have to wait until 2017?
You can ask me that question when we again in Q3. I don't have any like timetable on that,
to be honest.
Okay. So it sounds like we are not going to get it within the next coming months at least?
No. We're not in the
building phase. We're in the
exploring phase, so to speak. Okay. Thank you. Question question from the web as well.
You know that you can press the envelope at 10 times to send us questions. There's one question here. We partly touched on that before. But anyway, you say in the report that you're going to be cautious on the cost side due to the lower interest and the commission. Despite that, you're raising the cost with 6% to 8% 2016 compared to 2015 to go through some initiatives.
So two questions on that. What are these initiatives that you want to go through with? And 2, will you save on something else in order to be able to execute on those?
So I think the last couple of years, we have invested in specific areas. We have built out our innovation capability and that goes for more IT developers and more product developers. We have built out our analytical capability and that goes for licenses for software, analytical software and also people. And we have built out our occupational pension sales force in the Swedish market. And that has like built up the cost level from 20 14 or end of 2013 to successively over time to the cost level that we have now.
So there are no new investments that has taken us up from 2015 to 2016. It's a kind of latency effect. But what we're saying now is that we have the ambition now to maintain this level. That means we are not like killing any old investments. But over time, we will also take down the cost level without compromising our strategy.
Was there any further questions web question?
No, there are
not. Okay. Operator, unless you have any further questions.
So we have no further questions by phone.
Okay. And I think we can conclude the call. So thank you very much for listening. If you have any further questions, you know where you can find me, Jacob, Johan or Emily to put questions forward. And you're welcome anytime.
So thank you very much for listening and have a great summer day here in Stockholm.