Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this presentation of Handelsbanken's result for the first quarter of 2025. The first quarter showed an operating profit of SEK 8.1 billion, which was very stable compared to last quarter last year. The return on equity was 13%. Compared to the same quarter last year, the NII showed resilience, and fee and commissions grew on the back of positive development, again in the savings business. The costs have come down significantly over the year, down 7%. This led to the cost-to-income ratio improving year-on-year to 40.7% in the quarter. Net credit losses again for the fifth consecutive quarter amounted to net credit loss recoveries. In times of volatile markets and uncertainties about the macro outlook, it's always important to remind about the low funding and liquidity risks in the bank.
These are continuously handled in a prudent manner in order to safeguard the bank from potential unknown factors such as market disruptions or a rapid change in the macro environment. On top of the low credit funding and liquidity risks, the capital situation is robust, with the CET1 ratio still above the long-term target range. This, all in all, puts the bank in a solid financial position. On the back of prevailing uncertainties regarding the geopolitical landscape and the macro outlook, the anticipated dividend is calibrated to a level resulting in a CET1 ratio of 18.4%, which means 50 basis points above the long-term target range of 100-300 basis points above the regulatory requirement. The anticipated dividend for the first quarter of the year hence amounts to SEK 5 per share, or 157% of the earnings generated in the quarter.
Now, if we look closer at the financial summary of the first quarter compared to the previous quarter, ROE amounted, as said, to around 13%. NII dropped 2% when adjusting for negative currency effects relating to the strengthening of the SEK. The fee and commission income was seasonally lower and dropped 5%. The NII was unusually strong in Q4 and dropped back to a more normal level for the bank. In total, income dropped by 8%. Total expenses dropped by 5% and 2% adjusted for restructuring expenses, allocation to the Oktogonen and FX. This despite the annual salary increase that always comes in play in Q1 for the bank. The cost-to-income ratio was consequently kept around 40% despite the headwinds in income. The net credit losses amounted to net recoveries of SEK 54 million, or one basis point. The underlying operating profit was down 12%.
If we instead compare to the same quarter last year, NII showed resilience and only declined by 2% despite the material cuts in policy rates in our home markets. Net fee and commission, on the other hand, increased by 5%, with the key contributor again being the savings and mutual funds business. On the expense side, we saw an underlying reduction by 5%. The decline comes as an effect of the cost initiatives carried out over the last year. Net credit loss recoveries were a touch lower than last year. All in all, the operating profit was down by 2% and on an underlying basis by 4%. Now we zoom in to the NII development compared to the previous quarter. The NII dropped by 3%, of which 1 percentage point related to currency effects from a stronger Swedish krona.
The remaining decline of 2 percentage points was explained by negative margin effects due to mainly policy rate cuts. The remaining effects from volume development, day count, and other effects were minor and more or less offset each other. Net fee and commission income increased by 5% compared to last year, with the key contributor again relating to the savings-related commissions, which increased by 7% compared to last year. We continue to see that the bank gains market share in the savings business, which has been the trend for many years now. The decline in savings-related commissions versus Q4 was mainly related to a negative day count effect and performance fee booked in the previous quarter. Payment fees increased by 2% year-on-year. The quarter-on-quarter development was related to seasonality, with especially a slower customer activity on the card side. Other fees were up 2% year-on-year and fairly stable versus Q4.
Now over to the expenses. 2024 was a year with intense internal work in order to first identify and then address efficiency-enhancing measures. Central and business support functions were trimmed, and the use of external consultants reduced. The total staffing, meaning employees and external resources, was down by 7% compared to Q1 last year, and the total underlying cost dropped by 5%. The efforts carried out over the past 12 months have not only reduced the running cost base, but also strengthened the cost culture throughout the bank, which is essential for sustainable long-term efficiency, competitiveness, and profitability of the bank. At the same time, we increased our efforts and resources in the areas where we meet the customers and are now in Sweden physically present in more locations than a year ago.
As a result of the elevated pace of IT development spent in the past recent number of years, numerous rollouts of both efficiency-enhancing and business-facilitating tools have been made available for our employees. In fact, the stream of new tools in recent years has never been higher. This is on top of continuous upgrades in the customer interfaces in the app and in our internet bank. Of course, new digital tools are not increasing efficiency or generating business volume simply by itself. The value creation rather arises from efficient and optimal utilization of these. Currently, the organization is in full speed in adapting to working on realizing the full benefits of the new tools. For example, in the fields of CRM, FCP, internal workflows, customer interaction in areas of signing and documentation, Microsoft 365, cloud solutions, etc.
Naturally, this should lead to increased efficiency and improved offering and advice to our customers in the future. From a cost perspective, this also means that the running IT development spend can be kept somewhat lower as of now compared to the recent years. Now over to asset quality and credit losses, or rather the net credit recoveries. Over the past five years, which have included both a pandemic as well as stress situations for some corporate sectors during this period of sharp rate hikes, the bank has on aggregate reported total net credit loss recoveries of more than SEK 220 million. This underscores the strength of the asset quality and the prudent approach to risk in the bank. The reason for this relates to the bank's limited risk appetite, the consistency in the underwriting, the preference for collateralized lending, and not least the local presence and connections through our branches.
Also in this quarter, the management add-ons were trimmed down a bit, this time by SEK 28 million to a remaining SEK 121 million. Excluding the add-ons, the net credit loss recoveries amounted to SEK 26 million. The general view in the bank is that we simply do not like risk relating to external factors that we cannot control, such as market disruptions or rapid change in the macro environment. Our business models were built around relationships long-term with customers, having strong cash flow profiles and managing our prudent credit risk over time. Therefore, we always strive at limiting funding, liquidity, and market-related risk as much as possible in order to safeguard the bank against whatever unknown external events that might occur.
Over the past few years, we've increased the already ample liquidity buffer to add even further protection to the bank, and currently, the liquidity reserve amounts to around SEK 950 billion, representing more than a quarter of the balance sheet. On top of that, there are unencumbered assets, which in practice mean an additional liquidity buffer in the form of unused room for covered bond issuance. Hence, the bank is in a strong position to swiftly adjust to market disruptions should such occur. On top of low credit funding and liquidity risks, the capital situation is robust, with a CET1 ratio 50 basis points above the bank's long-term target range, which is 100-300 basis points above the regulatory requirement. The solid financials put the bank in a position of strength, being one of the most trustworthy and stable counterparts in the industry.
The view is shared by the leading rating agencies who rate the bank the highest among comparable banks globally. Now, a few words about the respective home markets. In our largest home market, Sweden, the development is stable. The cost-to-income ratio is around 30%, and the return on allocated capital is almost 15%. The bank has a strong market position in Sweden as the largest combined lender in private and corporate lending. As we've seen in the statistics over the past decade, the biggest player in regards to net inflows into mutual funds. In Norway, we've seen significant improvements over the course of the year. The cost-to-income ratio has improved from 52% in Q1 last year down to 44% in this quarter. After a refocus period that was starting during the spring last year, the business growth is now more balanced between lending, deposits, and savings.
Cost initiatives are also starting to show in the numbers. In the U.K., we have the most satisfied customers in the market. Volume growth, however, remains subdued with continued high amortization, but we see small signs of increased customer activity. Focus in the recent quarters has been on improving the efficiency, and we are gradually starting to see initiatives filtering through in the cost base in the U.K. Finally, the Netherlands, which is our smallest home market of the group. Also in Q1, we saw business volume growth, especially in asset management and deposits. To sum up, Q1 operating profit held up well compared to last year with NII resilience and lower costs. The cost-income ratio improved. Asset quality remains as robust as it should be for a bank with Handelsbanken's risk appetite and risk profile.
The funding and liquidity risks are low and the capital position very strong. Finally, and not least, we continue to focus on making sure that our advisors in our branches are close to and easily available for our customers. This is something our customers really appreciate, especially in more uncertain times. With those final remarks, we now take a short break before moving into the Q&A session. Thank you.
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Q&A session. This is Peter Grabe, Head of Investor Relations speaking, and in the studio we have Michael Green, CEO, and Carl Cederschiold, CFO. As always, we would like to remind you that we appreciate it if you ask one question at a time in order for everyone to get a chance to ask a question. Follow-up questions are, of course, welcome when it's your turn again.
With those words, operator, please, could we have the first question?
Thank you. We are going to take our first question. It comes from Marcus Sandgren from Kepler Cheuvreux . Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah, good morning. I was thinking about your own capital. You are targeting a buffer of 3.5%. What risks are you having in mind when you target a buffer above the 1-3% that you have usually? I mean, it is not liquidity risk, I assume. Also, you are not worried about credit risks as you continue to make credit reversal. What risks are we really talking about? Should we read this as your actual target is more of 3-4% than 1-3%?
Good morning, Marcus, and thanks for the question. No, you should not read that into the decision.
You know that we, after the COVID outbreak, obviously, we were at some time at plus 6 percentage points in CET1 gap. At that time, we said we kept reiterating that our normal target range is 1-3. It has obviously been a case of how do you move yourself within the normal target range. We took the first decision to move ourselves down to plus 4 during last year, and now we take the second step to move ourselves down to 3.5. We are on a trajectory to move into the normal target range. We just think that was quite a good timing to do it nowadays. We are, as you say, we're extremely pleased with our balance sheet, with the asset quality, with the liquidity situation. We can obviously see that there's a bit of muted growth.
We think it's quite a good timing, actually, to take this step now. We keep reiterating that 1-3 is our normal target range. What risks are you keeping additional capital for then? It's been a matter of obviously.
It's not business growth.
No, you've heard us obviously saying that when we were at plus 6, we didn't see risks that made us keep the buffer at plus 6. It was rather a metric of how to move yourselves down into the 1-3 percentage points. We will prioritize our long-term shareholders, and they are quite pleased with owning the bank and leaving some cash in the bank, returning 13% in ROE. We feel no stress, but we keep reiterating that we will move ourselves down to 1-3.
Okay, thank you. Thank you.
Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes to the line of Andreas Håkansson from SEB. Your line is open. Please ask a question.
Thank you. Good morning, guys. On slide seven, looking at the stock numbers, I mean, you made a very impressive reduction here now in, I guess, underlying own stock is down three and consultants are down even more than that. Could you tell us a little bit from what areas are you finding these people? Also, do you still believe there's room to do more in this area? Thanks.
Yes, thanks. Good morning, Andreas. As you say, we've taken down our total staffing levels by 975 people. That's been a combination then of staff plus consultants, obviously.
What we've said is that what Michael initiated during the start of last year was obviously we made an analysis of the central support functions. We managed to merge a few of them. We managed to take away a few resources there. That is one key component. The other one is that we've obviously, for quite a few years, invested quite heavily into our IT. We have invested in core systems. We have invested in CRM capability. We have invested in Microsoft 365 and quite a few, actually, digital advancements, which is obviously making the possibilities to work much more productive in quite a meaningful way. The conclusion of that one is that we've been able to move down our IT investments to some extent. Thereby, obviously, that is quite a meaningful impact as well.
The majority of that one is taking away consultants, which we needed to move through the uplift we needed to do a few years ago. Thirdly, which we might see nowadays, is that people are starting adapting to the better technique and possibilities we have. Thereby, we can work a bit more productive. The majority of the program-like actions, if you call it that way, are done. We have managed to go through them last year. We will have some more room to do in the U.K. because they are lagging a bit due to their processes. Second, we do expect, actually, we are in quite a good position to keep cost under control and keep progressing in creating more productivity. If that shows up in more business, we will be very pleased.
Otherwise, we think we have an organization which will gradually adjust.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes to the line of Magnus Andersson from ABG Sundal Collier. Your line is open. Please ask a question.
Yes, good morning. I have a question about the performance in your home markets outside of Sweden. I mean, they are all, as you account for it in your business accounting, ROE showing worse ROE than the Swedish market. Even if we disregard the capital allocation, which might play a role here, if you look at cost-income ratios in the U.K., it's the highest cost-income ratio in a long time, even before rates have started to normalize. In Norway, you are pretty flat at 2023 levels, 10% ROE, and you're at around 10% in the Netherlands.
I'm just wondering, is there any room for similar type of efficiency in housing measures as you pulled off in Sweden, or how are you else going to address this? I mean, the U.K., everything else equal could look quite disastrous when rates start to come down, for example. That's my question.
Thanks, Magnus, and good morning. I think for us, obviously, we know obviously that over a long time, we built new home markets. Normally, if you move back like 20 years, the way we built our home markets is we opened the branch. The branch manager decided how to approach the market. Normally, we started with lending clients and which borrowed money from us. Obviously, the regulatory regime has changed quite a bit in the picture. We've changed as well.
What we've spent quite a lot of efforts into is obviously to build a position in both the U.K., Norway, and Netherlands that makes us be able to accrue a balanced business. I think we've been doing quite a lot of actually positive moves here. We are in a situation now where if I talk U.K. first, we obviously built by being the most stable bank and by the distribution model we run in the U.K., which is obviously differentiating us vis-à-vis many of our peers. We have been able to build extremely good client relations. We have the best of client satisfaction. We have accrued a lot of savings, mainly in deposits. We are focusing a lot on improving the asset management side.
Both of these aspects are obviously needed to meaningfully move upwards in ROE, even though we obviously printed extremely strong ROE in the U.K. in the last years. Norway, we have invested a lot in over the last years. We built a private segment now where we have increased the number of clients by more than 40,000. That is a heavy improvement. That puts us in a position where we can run a much more balanced business model. Norway has made a lot of positive movements during the last year. As we have said, obviously, it will not go over a quarter. It will take some time. I am really pleased to see the growth we have seen in the Norwegian business model, which has been then obviously volumes in deposit taking and in assets under management has far succeeded the growth we have seen in lending.
Thereby, we think we are well positioned to move forward there as well. Netherlands, obviously, we placed a lot of focus in integrating now the asset management side. We have come some way. We have more room to go there. We think actually we are in quite a good position both to start accumulating absolute growth, but also rotating the business to a more ROE-friendly mix. I would actually think we are quite well positioned right now.
Okay, just to follow up on the U.K., as it's the most important. What you're saying really is that you're now at the 54% cost-to-income ratio. You're not going to address the cost base, but rather try to build on income, hope for growth to return and increase the fee-related part.
I think it's both. I think it's both. Michael, jump in then. I think it's both, actually.
First of all, we are obviously pursuing the same actions in the U.K. as we've done in Sweden. The process in the U.K. has been we needed to go through a more process with involving the staff in order to cut staff. You will see this metric coming through now in the coming quarter. We will definitely work with cost, and we will keep on doing that one. It is a necessity to start growing. We have 85,000 clients in the U.K. We think we can grow that number quite meaningfully with the offering we have. We have invested quite a lot in IT to bring on the leverage of the branch staff. Of course, as you say, we need to improve on the asset management, and we do quite a lot of actions there as well.
It is both, actually, both cutting costs and increasing income.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Now we are going to take our next question. The question comes to the line of Nicolas McBeath from DNB. Your line is open. Please ask a question.
Thank you. A follow-up on questions related to FTEs. Looking at the FTE trend in the Swedish operations, Handelsbanken Sweden, it is down almost 4% year on year. How should we think about this decline? Is that reflecting autonomous decisions within the branches or more some centralized communication or steering method? Because I think previously you said when FTEs rose in the branches in Sweden, that this reflects branches adapting to improve business outlook. Just wondering if this is reflecting the reverse now when we see FTEs are falling.
I think there are a few things we like to see in the figure over time.
First of all, as you say, yes, we've cut down obviously the support functions, so we merged them. That has some implications on this one. We like to keep on seeing productivity gains within the support functions. The second, which we highlighted during the year, is that, of course, we want to improve, first of all, the ratio of staffing out in the branches where we meet our clients. We want also to see that we're opening up branches or meeting places if we find good business there. We've seen that over the last year. Having said that, I think the branches actually are, by culture, they're extremely adaptable to the momentum, to the business momentum.
What they've actually achieved during the last year, we've obviously rolled out a lot of tools, which is making them possible to run a much more efficient and productive branch. Thereby, we've seen, and when we do not see the growth and the business momentum, they will adapt to that one. We will see what happens. I think both Michael and I would be most pleased if we see business start returning and we see strong growth. We are very happy to see them growing staffing again. We are equally pleased to see them adapting to the current environment.
Right. If I just might add, it's Michael here. I mean, the work we've done to bring efficiency more in place in the central functions, we will keep doing that.
How much the resources our branches need for their business is up to them to do. As Carl said, they're very adaptable to the business environment, and they will adjust accordingly. I'm very confident
with that. Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. The next question comes to the line of Sofie Peterzens from JP Morgan. Your line is open. Please ask a question.
Yeah, hi. Thanks both for taking my question. In terms of net interest income, when I kind of look at the operating division, net interest income was down in all the core divisions. But then in the other units, NII was actually up 215% at SEK 277 million this quarter. How should we think about the kind of run rate, net interest income in this other unit business? What's kind of a normalized level here?
If you could comment on that. Just a follow-up question on the cost line. Should we expect any costs from Octagon going forward, given that the cost for Octagon was pretty low this quarter? Is this now the new run rate? Thank you.
Let me start, and then Peter, please fill in on the first of all, in the NII, this is actually one of the what you're highlighting is obviously the true outcome of this quarter. This is one of the reasons why we don't guide and try to split it up on lending and deposit taking and various segments within the bank. What's happened, obviously, is both of our both we have quite a good impact from the liquidity portfolio this year. That's obviously one component of running the internal bank.
If we do the income or the NII components, they could end up either at the treasury side or in the segments. What we do internally is that we shift out all the P&L generated in the treasury out towards the segments. If we generate more money on the liquidity portfolio, that will be shifted out towards all segments, both our four home markets, but also other central functions. That is one part of what you have seen in the P&L during this quarter. Peter,
I think that is the way you should look at it, that the result in central treasury, the excess results that sometimes arise, are allocated to the business areas, so the segments, but also to central functions. The central functions are part of the other units that you alluded to.
Your second question, Octagon, I mean, we'll be extremely pleased if we square and surpass our peers. We'll be very happy to see Octagon accrual increase. It will be down to the performance over the year to see what the cost base of Octagon will be. You can guesstimate that as well as we do.
Yeah, okay, thank you. In terms of the net interest income just from the kind of treasury department, I mean, it's just very, very difficult to kind of forecast with these kind of moves. Is there any guidance or any way that you can help us kind of think about the net interest income from this division going forward? Yeah, like anything you could point to or even on a group level, like when net interest income will drop and when you expect NII to start to improve.
Because if you have like 215% quarter on quarter, it's very difficult to forecast. Yeah,
I think you, first of all, my message is you shouldn't be too detailed on that table and try to guesstimate the various sectors there. Because what we say is that they will keep moving around between the sectors over the quarters. Quite similar to what you heard from other banks, obviously, in earlier calls, we obviously had a negative component of nearly SEK 290 million from margins. That's due to us having roughly 25% of the deposit volumes on transaction accounts, which is where we pay 0%. Even if Riksbank are cutting their rate, we can't cut the rate we pay to our clients there. That's one core component which will have a negative impact on us.
As we talked about previously, we obviously have some timing effects, which is having the opposite component. In Sweden, they are coming from the fact that in Sweden, we reprice deposits daily, but we reprice the lending monthly. Thereby, it takes three months before that has worked through the system. Obviously, it could actually take two quarters in an accounting perspective before we see the all else equal level. That is the component in Sweden. In the U.K. and Norway, we actually have the opposite. We have notice periods there. The P&L we print right now is actually a bit lower than it will turn out to be when it is funneled through the system. I think we will have some lag effects.
Obviously, you should see them during Q2. We will have our normal trends if rates stay the same. It will not be until Q3 you see the full impact of it. In the end, obviously, after that, NII will be decided by volumes and margin development.
Okay, that is very clear. Maybe just on the net interest income also, do you still make a lot on the US carry trade with the US uncertainty? How much do you make? Did you call that the US carry trade?
I do not know if you call that the US carry trade. I can say we have no US carry trade if that was what you call it. We obviously have a liquidity reserve. Liquidity reserve over a long-term perspective is obviously an insurance.
In that case, obviously, we run with the view that over time will cost us something or slightly or be close to zero. Right now, obviously, we are in a situation where we are making some money on the US deposits we are accruing when we give them away to the central bank. We're pleased about it, but we can't take that for granted. We haven't changed anything in our US operations. Is there any quantum? How do you think about the quantum of the money that you make on the US liquidity portfolio? No, that's one key component of obviously running the treasury department. I'm sorry now, Sophia, I think you're done your question.
Yeah, sorry. Thank you very much. That was very helpful.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question.
The question comes to the line of Namita Samtani from Barclays. Your line is open. Please ask a question.
Good morning and thanks for taking my question. I just wondered, why did you issue more covered bonds in the first quarter than what matured given there is no lending growth on your balance sheet? Or do you foresee some lending growth picking up in the next few quarters? Thank you.
Thanks, Namita, and good morning. I think it is fair to say you know us, you know that we are an extremely conservative bank, and we will always play it from the secure side. We have obviously, being in such uncertain times, taken the opportunity to pre-fund ourselves. As you know, we have a tap-in market in Sweden, and thereby we have actually had investors which were interested in buying our covered bonds.
Thereby, it was actually quite a good timing and opportunity for us to scale up a bit in that area. Since you're asking, I think I can lay out the words as well and say that we've actually seen fairly fully functioning U.S. markets. We've been able to keep the exact financing plan on volumes. It's not been spread out over the days in such a smooth fashion as we've seen before. Over time, we've actually kept the pace which we wanted to.
That's helpful. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Now we're going to take our next question. It comes to the line of Bettina Thurner from Exane BNP Paribas . Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah, hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to ask to go back on capital.
I think it was very helpful with your comments that you're using this temporary buffer to steer down to the 1-3% normal range. For this year, I think, does it make sense for you to assume that you will steer it to pull your dividend to the 3.5% buffer? So did you land at the 18.4% at the end of the year, or do you think it's also possible that you will adjust the buffer again throughout this year? Thank you.
First of all, and thanks for the question. First of all, I think it's fair to say that we've said that our normal target range is 1-3%. We've said that we will communicate it quarterly. We've took the decision now to move it down half a percentage point. I think that's the only message I have. We've obviously took it down to 4% last year.
Now we decide to take it down to 3.5%. Then we'll see for the remaining of the year. We are in a good position, and we will obviously, you know us, we will try to do this in a smooth fashion and play to the long-term shareholders' benefit. For this year, it's fair to assume that you will steer the dividend that you land at the 18.4% as of now, let's say. I'd like to add there as well that we have the IRB overhaul, and we don't know when the conclusion from the IRB overhaul comes. When it does, we obviously expect to see our risk-weighted assets to grow, but the CET1 ratio to be brought down because we are penalized today by half a percentage point in pillar two add-on.
Thereby, if you're asking me if we will close the year at 18.4%, I don't know. We'll see.
Okay, helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Now we'll go and take our next question. The question comes to the line of Shrey Srivastava from Citi. Line is open. Please ask your question.
Hi, and thank you very much for taking my question. I just want to drill down a bit further into the U.K., where I think in local currency, you saw sort of 4%-5% NII decline. Firstly, what's driving that? I know you mentioned some timing effects earlier. Secondly, I know you've been doing a lot of work with the broker channel. If you look at household loans to the public, they've been in fairly consistent declines the last few quarters now.
I'd just like to ask, what's the progress looking like on that, and when can we start to see this reflect in the numbers? Thanks.
Thanks, Shrey. Good morning. I think it's fair. First of all, we obviously made a lot of work to bring our lending growth back. What we can see right now is that we are both actually adding new clients when it comes to corporate clients as well as private clients. That's actually quite a trend shift we've seen. I think on the private side, one component, but just one component to that one, is the relations we built with the nationwide brokers. It is also relations we built with the local brokers. Right now, 80%-90% of the U.K. mortgage markets are actually running through brokers. Thereby, we needed to build that one.
As of now, we have six brokers which we have onboarded. We plan to have like 10 brokers onboarded at summertime. We think that's actually enough to move our growth back to being positive there. Time will tell. Obviously, with the very uncertain times, we could keep seeing amortizing grow from this level. Having said that, we think we are in quite a good position actually to start seeing both growth in number of clients transferring into growth actually in volumes. Obviously, this is work we've done for quite some time. The next step of that one is, as we say, we are investing quite a lot in IT right now in the U.K.
The reason for that one is that we want to increase the leverage and the productivity of the branches and thereby be able to more or less double our client size. That is the longer-term journey as well. As you know, we are a very small bank in a very big market with by far the highest client satisfaction and an offering which is highly appreciated. I think we are quite well positioned actually over time to start seeing the U.K. get back to being a growth engine.
Okay, thank you very much. The sequential NII decline, in Q1 versus Q4?
Sorry, the NII drop in the U.K. is obviously a consequence of rate movement and margin compression there as well.
Okay, thank you very much. Very helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you. The last question for today comes from the line of Marcus Sandgren from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Your line is open. Please ask your question.
Yeah, hi again. Yes, the technical one on the day count effect. I just figured that two fewer days in this quarter versus last one is roughly 2% lower NII. I was apparently wrong. Is there a big mismatch between convention on assets and liabilities, or what am I missing?
Yes, you're partly correct. The day count effect that we have talked about historically relates to the type of the lending and the funding that we have in the bank, which are priced on an actual day count convention. If the bank obviously earns a slight margin, if there are fewer days in a month, then obviously there are fewer days of earning this margin. That's the traditional one. That's the one that we disclose for the business segments. That's the same, unchanged.
You have another impact arising within central treasury. You could either call it sort of a treasury margin or the like, or you can define it as a day count effect. We have now chosen to do the latter because we believe it provides an increased degree of transparency for you. This effect that arises in central treasury offsets the negative impact that you would see in the business areas if you have fewer days. As you touch upon, it's correct. It relates to different day count effects on the lending compared to our funding. If you have a loan that's based on 30 days per month that the customer pays, and you have funding that's based on the actual days in a month.
If I have a month of 28 days, you have interest based on two fewer days compared to what you get from the customers. Vice versa, of course, if you have more than 30 days in a month. This effect arises in central treasury, and that is the one we are highlighting. In sum, the day count effect is a touch above SEK 40 million for two days, so around SEK 20-25 million per day. That is the number that you should use going forward when assessing the day count effect on a net basis.
Got it, thanks.
The speaker turned over the questions for today. I would like to hand over to the management team for any closing remarks.
Thank you for attending this call, and I hope to talk to you soon. Have a nice day. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you.