Good morning, and welcome to the presentation of Nordnet's fourth quarter of 2025. My name is Marcus Lindberg, and I'm the Head of Investor Relations at Nordnet. With me today, I have our CEO, Lars-Åke Norling, and our CFO, Lennart Krän. Lars-Åke and Lennart will start off by presenting the results, and then we'll have a Q&A session. During the presentation, all participants will be on mute. Then when we come to the Q&A session, you have two alternatives to ask questions. You can click the Raise Hand button. I'll then unmute you and call your name, or you can submit a question in writing. The presentation itself is available on our corporate website, nordnetab.com. Okay, let's start the presentation. Lars-Åke, please go ahead.
Thank you, Marcus. So let's start with the highlights. We see continued strong growth in our core brokerage and fund business from a growing customer base and also positive market sentiments. Also really good net savings, and strong customer growth. Overall strong trading activity and another record quarter for cross-border trading. And we see high trading both in the U.S. markets, the European markets, and some Nordic markets, not least Denmark, with the big swings in Novo Nordisk. We see a decline in net interest income due to lower policy rates, but it's partly mitigated by higher deposit levels. Cost growth is in line with target for the full year, around 8%, excluding Germany. And we now also launched a new private banking concept in all of our Nordic countries, and it's been very well received.
We have passported now the German or the Swedish bank license to Germany, and that's approved, and the H2 launch in Germany is on track. The proposed dividend is SEK 8.60 per share, up from SEK 8.10 last year. Some of the financial highlights, strong customer growth at 12%, savings capital up 15%, both from underlying market growth, but also very strong net savings. Number of trades up 16% from growing customer base, but also positive markets. Revenues is up 6%. We see a decline in net interest income from lower rates, but a very strong growth in our trading and our fund business. Operating expenses is up 8% year-over-year, including here cost of Germany.
So underlying cost development was lower, and that's mainly due to savings on marketing costs versus last year, or versus 2024. And the continued profitable growth with the profit growing 5% for the quarter. Looking for the full year, customer savings capital, of course, the same. The trades is also for the full year, strong, up 20%, both from, from the, the growing customer base, but also the volatility we saw around the tariff uncertainty during the spring, but also strong stock market sentiment in H2. Just the revenues up 6% and for the full year, and we have a record revenue of around SEK 5.4 billion. Again, net it's NII going down due to low rates, but also that we sold the personal loans portfolio in 2024.
But again, strong growth in the trading and the fund business. Adjusted operating expenses is 12%, including Germany, but excluding Germany is around 8% as per guidance. Cost for Germany was around slightly lower than SEK 60 million in 2025. Also, record profit growth for the year of 5% to around SEK 3.8 billion. Was very good momentum, both in customer growth and net savings. We have on board around 255,000 new customers in 2025, same absolute levels as in 2024. Also very strong net savings, SEK 78 billion for the year, up from SEK 73 billion in 2024.
And our geographic diversification de-risk the business model and enables growth, and we see here that savings capital is growing also more than, than the customer growth, except from Denmark. But in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, we saw both, good market development, but also strong net savings. In Denmark, we had very good net savings, but as you know, the Danish market had a very negative year in 2025 due to Novo Nordisk and Ørsted and, and some other shares going down quite a bit. And looking a little bit on the different revenue streams, starting with trading, we see here, the graph to the left, the blue line, that's the number of trading customers going up with the growing customer base.
Trades per trading customer is fairly stable in the quarter, but the share of cross-border trading is continuing to go up, both from the country mix, since we grow more in Denmark, Finland, Norway, where they naturally trade a lot outside their home market because the home market is small, but also that we saw a strong trading and market sentiment in both Europe and US, and also a lot of trading in Denmark with Novo Nordisk. Trades per day up 20% compared to 2024, and each trade drives 10% more revenue. If you look to the left here on the graph, since 2019, we have more than doubled the amount of trades per day.
That's, of course, since we more than doubled the customer base during the same period. From around 900,000 customers to 2.4 million customers. But we also see that the trades per customer per day is a little bit up in 2025, both from the volatility we saw during the spring from the tariff uncertainty, but also very strong market sentiment in H2. We see also the income per trade is continuing to go up, and that's due to high share of cross-border trading. Looking at the fund business, we see a steady growth in fund capital, and we have more than double, or we have about double the fund capital since 2021, from SEK 150 billion to around SEK 300 billion now in 2025.
We see also the fund margins are stabilizing, as active to passive shift slows, but also when customers buy passive funds, they mainly buy Nordnet passive funds, where we have the higher margin. And over one quarter of the fund capital is now in the Nordnet brand of funds, and more than half of the customers own funds. We see a slightly lower net flow or net buy in into funds in 2025 versus 2024. That's mainly due to the uncertainty during the spring, where we saw outflows in March and April.
Looking at net interest income, starting with the deposit level, and here we look at deposit level for the full year, and that's going from SEK 70 billion in the beginning of the year to SEK 84 billion, so up 20% from strong net savings and also high dividends. But now, of course, we also see a strong net buying during the year, driving our core business. There's a lot of buying in brokerage and funds. And looking at our snapshot that we normally do for NII, NII is a snapshot for 2026. And starting with the liquidity portfolio, we see or estimate SEK 1.6 billion in 2026, the same level as 2025.
The main sensitivity here is, of course, deposit volume, because with this estimate, we see deposit volumes fixed. But we see a likely upside with deposit volumes with the growing customer base. Looking at liquidity portfolio in the quarter, it's up due to high deposits and stable lending. Overall, if you look at the interest rates passed on to the rates, it is stable or slightly up in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, but it's going to be a little bit lower over the year in Norway, but from high levels. Looking at the loan portfolio snapshot for 2026, SEK 1.1 billion, also same level as 2025.
Main sensitivity here is volume of margin lending, but we also is likely will have an upside from customer growth and high savings capital. And we see in the graph up to the left, the red bar here, that that's mortgage lending volume. That's been dipping a little bit, of course, during the spring with all the volatility, but it's recovered nicely in the fall from stronger markets. And overall, we have a very low-risk lending portfolio, loan-to-value, both the mortgage and margin lending is around at 40% and virtually no credit losses.
Looking at the margins, we've had a full pass-through of the mortgage margin, mortgage rate with a lowering of central bank rates, but we maintained the margin lending margin at fairly okay levels, in spite of central bank cuts. Go to next. Looking at deposit interest, the snapshot is SEK 350 million in 2026, so that's a little bit lower than we saw in 2025. Main sensitivity here is amount of money on the savings accounts in each country, and we estimate that will go down when the interest rates are lower. But we actually saw a little bit tick up in the quarter in Sweden, due to good growth in private banking.
So in summary, very resilient revenues, bolstered by our diversified revenue streams. Looking at those, obviously, the red one is net interest income, the dark blue is fund, and the light blue is brokerage. We see strong growth since 2019 in all of those revenue streams. Of course, a decline in net interest income in 2025 due to lower rates. So net interest income is around now 40% of the revenue. But we expect net interest income to stabilize in 2026, as we showed, due to that we are at the end of the rate cut cycle. And then it will likely start growing again from a growing customer base and thereby higher depositing lending volumes. Looking at the margins, we...
Of course, the deposit margin is going down with low rates. We see a uptick in brokerage margin for high share of cross-border trading, but the fund margin continues stable, around 25 basis points. And overall, a business model with very good operating leverage. We have a very strong revenue growth, around 25% per year since 2019. But a limited cost growth of around 7%, so most of the top line growth ends up on the bottom line, so really true position of profitable growth. We also continue with a lot of launches for our platform, both features and products. And we have focused quite a lot on the high-end segment during the year.
And just to mention a few things in quarter four, that we introduced as a first platform, that you can have recurring savings in crypto certificates. We also secured we have the same experience when it comes to setting up savings plans for fund savings as pension savings, and also a lot more rich data from FactSet, both historic data and forward-looking data for our instruments. That's been very well received by our customers. So with that, I think I hand over to you, Lennart.
Thank you very much. Yes, I'm very comfortable and pleased with the strong capital and liquidity situation that we still have, and working on continuous having with a leverage ratio of 5.1%, which is the constraining factor, of course, but also a lot of room for further deposits, because that is the risk here. We also, as Lars-Åke presented earlier, recommend a dividend of 8.6 SEK per share, which is an increase per share by 50 öre, but still within the targets that we have of 70% payout of the net result. We have also, throughout the year 2025, bought back shares, and we are continuing our program with that for about SEK 100 million until mid-March.
So a strong capital and liquidity situation, which creates a great flexibility for us going forward.
Thank you, Lennart. A little bit on a strategic focus, and you probably recognize our strategic ambitions. We have four main ambitions, starting, of course, with having the most satisfied customers by having this one-stop shop for savings investments with a really good user experience. And then engage employees. We know we can never have happy customers unless we have very passionate and talented staff, and that we manage to attract and retain top talent, which we can. Then a sustainable business. We are in a trust business. We need to earn that trust every day, and most important is to have really a strong focus and management of our risks, and also that we overall are a trusted and liked brand.
Last area is profitable growth, to capture the Nordic and German growth potential, to continue to take market share in the growing savings market in the Nordics, and then open Germany in H2 this year. And of course, continue to secure scalability and cost control in our business. And we have had a very strong growth in customers and savings capital over the years. We have very satisfied customers and a critical mass of customers also in each country, and thereby it works with a customer recommending our platform to other customers. And customer growth and savings capital, and the savings growth is the most important growth drivers for us. So customers sign up to the platform, they like what they see, they bring money from their other banks and start using our products.
I know that we are taking market share in a growing savings market in the Nordics, but we still have a fairly low market share, so there's a long growth potential in the Nordics. At the same time, we get extra optionality when we open Germany in H2. We have 8% of the population on our platform in the Nordics, around 7% of the savings capital. That's up from 3% in 2016, so we're taking market share, and we know also the underlying savings market is growing. Highest market share in equities, but it's an area we, of course, going to continue to focus on, but lower market shares in funds and pension, which is the two important growth areas for us. Looking at the cost, we have a very scalable platform and also good cost control.
Underlying cost growth is around 3% per year, but then we have decided to reinvest some of the leverage into future growth, so a little bit more product and tech and more marketing. And the German launch now, also that we have set up a fund company and also pension companies in Denmark and in Finland. And the medium-term financial targets is reiterated from last year. Looking at the quarter, we are mostly on track, or for the year, we are on track with all of those targets. We're only slightly behind on customer growth, 12% instead of 13%-15%, but we... And it's mainly due to, I mean, there was a lot of uncertainty and volatility during the spring that's impacted a little bit the customer growth.
But we see in 2026 that there's good potential to reach the target level. There's positive markets. We continue to see effects of our marketing spend. We're launching a lot of new products in 2025, but also the real income for customers is increasing with lower rates and also lower inflation. And a little bit the key priorities for 2026. Of course, there's been a lot of focus on the German launch in H2. Passport of the license is done, and most of the organization is in place, and we we've really been able to attract good people, which I think is a good sign. And development is full speed ahead now ongoing.
And a positive with Germany is that the government has decided to introduce a pension account from first of January 2027, where you can save without having to pay tax until you take it out from the pension account. So it's a tax efficient savings account. And we know that from Sweden and other Nordic countries, those tax-efficient accounts are really good for attracting capital from customers and also increasing interest to invest in the capital markets. We, of course, are gonna continue to a strong focus on fund business and the pension business, and not least, to realize the potential in the Livrente Danish pension product.
We see that net savings and pension in Denmark overall is up 45% in 2025 versus 2024, and a big driver of that is Livrente. We focus a lot also on AI, both how we can integrate that into products, but also make our internal processes more efficient. And on the product side, we just launched since before AI summaries and news, and now we just launched AI summaries of quarterly reports. But it's gonna be a lot more exciting features to come in the product area. On the process side, I think the most interesting AI for us is agentic coding, to see if we can make our development more efficient and get even higher throughputs.
Then, of course, since we launched our private banking in all markets, we're gonna develop and capitalize on that launch, and also continue to release new functionality in this framework over the year. And last but not least, to maintain, of course, focus on cost control, focus on scalability and automation. So with that, I think I hand over to you, Marcus, for questions.
Great. Thank you for talking, Lennart. So now we'll open up for questions. So like I said before, if you want to ask a question, just click the Raise Hand button. I'll then announce your name and unmute you. So the first question comes from Patrik Brattelius at ABG. Please go ahead, Patrik.
Do you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Perfect. Great. My first question is regarding the optimism there on the customer growth that you ended your presentation with. We are seeing that Sweden is taking positive steps, and you said that you are optimistic that you will reach your target here in 2026. Can you elaborate a little bit on which geographies you're specifically optimistic about? And when do you foresee Sweden coming closer to the target level?
Yeah, but overall, it's a good potential for growth. It's a positive market sentiment. Like I said, we launched a lot of exciting products last year. We have more real income for the customers due to lower inflation, lower rates. So, with Sweden, I mean, as you know, we're strong in the investor segment there, the high-end segment, and we see if we can broaden into the safer segments. And we see effect of the marketing, the high awareness, higher consideration, and hopefully that can also spill over to a little bit higher customer growth during the year. It will not be the same as in the other countries, because the main focus and our strength is still in the more high-end segments.
I would say we have a good potential to have a good growth in Sweden, but also in the other countries, and not least Denmark, where we saw a very strong growth last year in spite of very weak markets. With the market picking up in Denmark, it's gonna be exciting to see that progressing over the year. Finland, we just passed 700,000 customers, really good momentum, but also really good momentum in Norway. We are positive that we should be able to reach the growth target.
Okay, thank you. In terms of cross-border trading, we've seen an increasing share in the last couple of quarters. How do you view this in terms of how temporary is this increase, or is this a longer trend that we should see continued increase of share of cross-border trading?
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, it's part due to, to the country mix as we grow customer base more in countries outside of Sweden, so Norway, Denmark, Finland, where they traditionally trade more cross-border because they have a small home market. Of course, that trend will continue and drive the cross-border share over time. But then we also see, not least during H2, strong cross-border trading, both in the U.S., but also in Europe, and not least from... We also been launching 10 new markets in Europe for trading, which has been good. But also in some Nordic markets, especially Denmark, around Novo Nordisk. But I think it's a big potential for cross-border trading going forward. Of course, the share of home bias is still strong.
It's around 70, 70% is invested in Nordics. So I think it's room to diversify more, but of course, it's more and more foreign shares on the portfolios, and that in itself will lead to more cross-border trading. So I think we over time, we see higher levels, but then, of course, it will go a little bit up and down versus the market sentiment in different markets.
Thank you. As the last question is regarding the private banking concept that you have launched now in all geographies. Could you perhaps share some early reflections on the geographical differences?
Yeah, but it's been very well received in all of our markets. We've been running it the longest in Sweden since we launched in the summer, and we see an uptick in both net savings and customer numbers in the PB segment. I think we have a very big potential in the other countries as well, but of course, they've not been live that long. But off to a good start, I would say, and it's been, like I said, it was very well received.
I see. Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you, Patrik. Next question comes from Jacob Hesslevik at SEB.
Good morning, everyone. So two questions from my side. If we start with the new NII guidance for 2026, I assume that is on a flat or the current existing deposit base. Given it grew double-digit, almost 20% in 2025 over 2024, what is your outlook on deposit development during 2026?
Yeah, I think we estimate that deposit will grow in absolute terms from a growing customer base and also strong net savings capital to that. Of course, deposit versus savings capital is probably not going to take any dramatic jumps unless we have a real downturn in the market. Then, of course, it will move really fast. But in absolute terms, we only expect the deposit levels to grow.
All right, thank you. Then finally, the new German pension savings account launching in January 2027-
Yeah
A ppears to be quite significant.
Yes.
How large do you estimate this market opportunity to be, and what preparations are needed to capitalize on it?
Yeah, I mean, it's going to affect all the working population in Germany. So, you know, only 70% of Germans today invest in the capital markets. There's, of course, a huge potential to attract more capital into the capital markets, and you can buy ETFs and funds in that wrapper. And we know from experience from Sweden and other countries that those tax-efficient wrappers are really good for attracting both capital, but also interest from customers in the capital markets. So I think over time, it's going to be a very big product, and it's very good that Germany has launched now a tax-efficient wrapper. They haven't had that before, so it's a big step forward. It's a bank product.
It's not insurance product, so it's not that difficult for us to, to implement it either. We don't need an insurance company in Germany to, to do that at this stage. So of course, a product we will secure that we have at launch, or when the-
Right
When the product is launched from first of January 2027.
Yeah. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Jacob. Next question comes from Nicolas Vayssières from BNP Paribas Exane.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yeah.
All right, thank you very much for taking the questions. Just three questions for me. Should we go one by one?
Yeah.
In Sweden, I've noticed the fund flows, I mean, sorry, the net savings have gone down again sequentially this quarter. It's the same as happened for Avanza. Can you tell us what's your view on the momentum in net savings in Sweden?
Yeah. I mean, overall, I mean, we see a strong pickup in our savings in Sweden in 2025 versus 2024. It was a little bit down in the end of the quarter, but it's more due to more one-off movements. You know, we have customers in Sweden, really a lot of capital, so it can swing a little bit month to month, and especially at year-end, people always adjust their portfolios a little bit, so it's nothing strange with that. But hopefully we can... With a positive market market sentiment also in 2026, we should be able to see a good net savings also in Sweden.
All right. Thank you. And still in Sweden, so the increase in the ISK cap, I mean, I understand it was already in force in 2025.
Yeah.
Can you tell us, among your customers, if you've seen people already making the most of the increase by adding more saving than their usual pattern in 2025, or if it's something that we should see more coming in in 2026 or even 2027?
Well, like I said, in 2025, we saw very good net savings in Sweden, both in retail, but not least in private banking, since after the new concept that we launched. And part of that is probably due to the cap. In retail, part of that is probably due to cap. Let's see how it plays out in 2026, but it should be good for the retail segment or the flows from retail segment.
Okay. And in Finland and Denmark last year, you had meaningful product launches with the tax wrappers delivering in Denmark and the endowment product in Finland. Could we have any update on the customer numbers you've signed up for each product, and what's the savings capital you have under each product?
Yeah, so in the wrapper is around 5,000 accounts and SEK 2 billion in capital, about the same in Livrente, but the Livrente is also pulling with it the bank pension. So in many cases, you cannot transfer your pension unless you can receive both the bank pension and Livrente pension. And before we couldn't do that, so we lost out a lot of the transfers. So with Livrente, we get both Livrente money, but then we get the bank pension transfer money as well. So overall net savings in pension in Denmark is up 45% in 2025, versus 2024, so around SEK 5.2 billion, I think, in 2025. So we're really happy with the pension development in Denmark.
Of course, we want to see a little bit higher level on the wrapper in Finland, but it's building from below, because as you know, it's you cannot transfer a wrapper to us without realizing tax, which is an issue. But so it's mainly built from the ground up in our customer base.
Okay, thank you. And just a last one very quickly, 'cause the line cut from the previous person asking. In Germany, the pension product, would you be looking to launch it from very early on?
Yes
In 2027 for moment?
Yes.
Okay, thank you.
Yes. It's gonna be a very important product for us.
Thank you very much. That's all for me.
Thank you, Nicolas. Next question comes from Ermin Keric from DNB Carnegie. Can you hear us, Ermin?
Yes.
Looks like you're unmuted.
It's blocked by Zoom.
All right, well, we can let Ermin try again later. Let's go to Martin Ekstedt at Handelsbanken.
Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes.
Ah, excellent! So first question. I saw that fund income coming in above expectation seems to be a matter of fund margins in Sweden, largely improving two basis points between quarters now. From what I can see, at least quickly, this represents the largest trend break, a positive trend break for this otherwise declining margin. I think it's been declining since 2022 at least. So are we seeing a one-off quarter here? Is there a more sticky change in fund mix among customers? I think you mentioned in the presentation that there is more of Nordnet's own funds in-
Yeah
T he mix, basically.
Yeah, but I think in Sweden, the uptick there is also that, I mean, active funds have become a little bit more popular in quarter four, with strong, and also a lot of movements in different equities. But also, it's probably a little bit uptick from effects also in funds, where the customers buy international funds. So I don't think it's gonna be a massive shift in margin. Let's see about that, but we're happy to have stabilized and maintained the overall margin in funds in Nordnet overall.
Understood. So there is a currency component to that one as well?
It is a currency component. It's smaller than, of course, in the trading, but it is a currency component there as well.
Okay, okay. And then for my second question, just quickly on, on Germany. I mean, SEK 25 million for cost for the German expansion in Q4 is quite a ramp-up from just SEK 32 million for the first nine months of 2025, right?
Yeah.
So at least I wasn't personally expecting you to fully reach the 25-year guidance. So I'm, I mean, I know SEK 57 million for the year is below the SEK 60 million you guided, but the SEK 25 million.
Yeah
I n Q4 is also clearly a run rate above what you now guide for 2026. I just wanted to check if the cost is just lumpy or if there were any particular costs-
Yeah, but it's-
A little bit Q4
A little bit, I mean, both that we get more, of course, the organization in place, but, but also, that we're doing a lot of development and, and someone, of course, also related to development and different agreements and things like that. So it, it's gonna be a bit, lumpy, but it's also for next year, we got SEK 80 million-SEK 90 million. It's gonna be lower first half and higher, second half...
But this doesn't represent an acceleration of the plan in any way?
No, no, it doesn't. No.
Okay, understood. That's all from me. Thank you.
Thank you, Martin. Should we try Ermin again, see if you can unmute? I guess not. So Ermin, feel free to write your question or try to maybe, maybe call in. Let's go to Enrico Bolzoni from JP Morgan.
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?
Yep.
Thank you. Thanks for taking my question.
Mm-hmm.
Just one on Germany. You clearly target the break even in 2029. Can you give us some color on maybe what sort of intermediate KPI you're going to track and whether you plan to disclose them? So for example, I think about in terms of customer acquisition, do you think you might be able to acquire some customers already from this year, or it's gonna be more a 2027 figure? And do you have some sort of numbers in mind that would indicate that you are on track? Thanks.
Yeah, well, of course, customer growth and net saving and customer acquisition cost is, of course, an important metric when we launch. We plan to, of course, take in some customers this year as well. But it's gonna be more growth from 2027. But we don't wanna disclose those numbers at this stage. So let's see how we guide on that forward, but we wanna launch first and get going.
Thank you. And related to that, can I just ask, you clearly are a new player going into a market that is completely new, so.
Yeah
The retail investors probably don't know you, don't know your brand, don't know your name. So can you just talk about, in general terms, so what, what is the marketing strategy to become better known with these clients? Is it pure, pure marketing? Is, is there any other channel that you, you think you can pursue? I'm just curious from a strategic point of view, what is the, what is the approach?
Yeah. I mean, it goes both, of course, gonna work on the PR track, and we're gonna have the savings economist also in Germany. So that concept has been really successful in the Nordics. But then, of course, we're gonna spend on marketing, but I would say probably less on generic brand marketing, but much more on tactical that we secure that we reach the right target group in the right digital channel. And as you know, we don't focus on all market to start with. It's mainly the investor segments, so customers with already money that already on the digital platform, so with banks and we wanna attract them over to our platform with a good one-stop shop, a good price, and also good experience.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you, Enrico. Next question comes from Zach Wirth from Autonomous Research. Zach, can you hear us?
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, we can.
Right.
All right. Sorry about that. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. So the first is on private banking . The release said that the focus in 2026 will be on developing the concept further by adding new products and implementing quality improvements.
Yeah.
Can you give a little color on the, the roadmap here and what kind of products you think are missing that there's real demand for?
I could, but I won't say, for competitive reasons. But I think we will work on a few interesting concepts that I think is gonna be good. But we'll see when it comes. But it's definitely a framework we're gonna continue to launch new functionality over time, both in 2026, but also in the years to come.
Yeah. Understood. Fair enough. I'll try again with the plans to integrate AI into products and but also on the internal efficiency side.
Yeah.
Can you just talk through sort of what the plans are there or, where you see potential?
Yeah. So I mean, I think it's probably the most potential is on the product side. I think we're gonna see a lot of things happening on the product side with AI. So far, we have, you know, new summaries with AI. It's been really popular. It's, when you open an instrument, you see the summary of all the news that's for that instrument. But we also now just launched AI summaries of quarter reports, but we're looking at a lot of other exciting features that we can do with AI when it comes to products. And of course, over time, it can be more advanced, fully analysis, analyze your portfolios and come up with recommendations and things like that. But it's also, of course, a regulatory component to that.
But, I think there's a lot gonna happen with AI on, on the product side. That's very exciting. But then on the efficiency side, I think, of course, you can optimize some operations processes, customer service processes. But I think the main upside for us, if we can increase efficiency development with agentic AI coding, because our bottleneck is still tech, and we have a long, long wish list of things to do. So if we can become... We are fast today, but if we can become even faster, we can launch a lot of exciting stuff so over the coming years. So we look a lot into agentic AI coding as well.
Is that a project that's underway now? Do you have any kind of timeline on that?
Yeah, it is a project. So we have a specific tech team now enabling the infrastructure for agentic coding. And of course, we use AI tools in the development or in tech. But I think it's a lot to do on efficiency. If the AI models continue to evolve exponentially as they've done, I think it will be possible to make coding more efficient over time.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thanks.
Thank you, Zach. Next question comes from Mike Sanderson, from Barclays.
Good morning. Just a couple of ones from my end, if that is okay. First of all, you mentioned in your writing about the payout, and then sort of you think you've got the potential for buybacks. Could you sort of remind me of how you think about when you do buybacks and timing and scale, given the capacity you want to keep to take on savings?
Yeah.
And then, the second question... Sorry, putting it together. Just you did a lot of investment in marketing last year, or talked about the investment in marketing. I mean, how do you think that you've now got to a level of marketing spend that's recurring, or are there step-ups that you think will need to go with some of these new products, excluding Germany? I sort of understand Germany is obviously.
Yeah
Very separate, but, within the other existing markets?
Yeah. I don't know, Lennart, do you want to take the payout?
Yes, I mean.
Buyback
We have, as you know, the major constraint for us is not risk-weighted capital adequacy. It's rather the leverage ratio, and in that, we have the span of 4.0-4.5, and that's where we're aiming, of course. We have lost it. We have bought back about SEK 627 million of stocks up to year end and continue, and that will be about a billion. We have plans going forward, but we also have this AT1 that will have its first quarter on sixth of November this year. So we are a little bit cautious of how those develops, but we are aiming in the long run to get down to the 4.540 leverage ratio.
That's, that's where we're aiming at. And then we have to look upon how is the deposit developing, and what capacity do we need to be able to have that. And of course, Germany is one part that we have to adapt to, if there's an increase in deposit or not. So we will come back to this later on, with how we will act further on, but the first one is here to look upon the, the AT1 that has its first call in, in November this year.
Thank you, Lennart. I will say, on the marketing, I mean, we see positive effects on the marketing that we've been doing now, both in awareness and consideration, not least in our core segment, investors. But I think this new level around SEK 105 million-SEK 110 million in Nordics is a good, good level for us also going forward. So we don't plan an additional step up from this level right now.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. Next question comes from Oliver Carruthers from Goldman Sachs.
Hi there. Morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question.
Morning.
Three questions for me. So first, on cross-border trading. So if demand stays at a higher level for cross-border trading, any thoughts on how pricing might evolve for this in your markets over time, given it's currently more expensive for your customers? Second question, have you finalized what your pricing strategy is gonna look like in Germany yet? And how dependent is this strategy going to be on how the German incumbent shift models in response to the PFOF roll- off later this year?
Yeah.
Final question: Any early thoughts on prediction markets, which have.
Mm-hmm
O bviously, been growing a lot, particularly in the U.S., and thoughts around being a distribution layer for those markets? Thank you.
Yeah, cross-border trading and I think it is, like we discussed, the potential also going forward due to the country mix we have, but also that the customers are more diversified now and actually trade more in cross-border shares. But it, of course, then boils down to market sentiment in each market, the fundamentals there. When it comes to pricing, we've introduced, as you know, FX accounts on the tax wrappers. We had it on the depot accounts before. So if you trade a lot, you can sign up for an FX account. So that's also appreciated. It's not that many customers that use it, but the ones that trade a lot believes it's beneficial.
So we, we don't see that we need to do anything on pricing except from that. Pricing strategy, Germany, of course, we, we discussed that a lot. I can't comment on all the specifics there. But we're. We will see also how the PFOF plays out, and the ban is gonna be there, but, but it seems like the, the platforms and banks in Germany will get some revenue streams from the marketplaces anyway, but in different shape and form. So we need to see how that plays out and how we're gonna play that game. Prediction markets, I mean, it's interesting. It's really booming in the U.S. I mean, it's something we look at, but we have, we haven't, we haven't decided to do anything there at this stage, and it's also regulated.
I think regulation around that is a bit different to Europe versus the U.S.
Okay, thank you. There are no more questions on the line, but I have a written question here.
Yeah.
So can you say anything of the typical behavior of the German customer group that's already active in the market and that you're targeting? Are they trading a lot of equity, ETFs, et cetera? Are they owning funds, single stocks? Is it similar to the behavior you have in your Nordic customer base?
Yeah, I mean, for the investor segment, where we target is fairly similar. It's more, I mean, they trade a little bit more ETFs than funds. So ETF has been becoming very popular in Germany, mainly due to pricing, because the funds have had very high price normally. I think we can do a lot of good stuff in the fund business in Germany with our products and our pricing. When it comes to trading, I mean, some trade, I mean, of course, on the primary markets, if you trade a little bit more, you do it on primary markets, but some also trade international shares on market-making markets like Tradegate, where you have euro-denominated U.S. equities, for example.
So, so that's a little bit different, but the ones that trade a lot, and higher, higher, trades, they trade on the, on the main markets.
Great. So I think that was the last question for today. So thanks, everyone, for attending the presentation, and please visit our website, nordnetab.com, or reach out to me if you have any questions. Thank you so much, and have a nice day.