Good morning, and welcome to this presentation of Handelsbanken's results for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2026. When we add Q3 to the bank's 155-year long history, we can see that the solid and stable value creation generated by our business model continued. Net interest income, fee and commissions and NFT increased and expenses dropped. Asset quality remained solid with a credit loss ratio again of 0 basis points. Operating profit increased by 10% compared to the previous quarter and reached SEK 7.4 billion. All home markets saw increased operating profits. Business volume grew in terms of both household and corporate lending and deposits, as well as AUM, which reached a new all-time high this quarter. ROE increased to 13.5%. The capital position remains robust.
In this year's SREP from the Swedish FSA, the capital requirement, including Pillar 2G, was lowered by 20 basis points to 14.5% after deduction of anticipated dividend for the first nine months of the year of SEK 8 per share, equivalent to 92% of profits for the period. The CET1 ratio was 17%. In other words, 250 basis points above the requirement, including Pillar 2G, and within the target range of 100 - 300 basis points above. The bank has now received approval for new PD models for both corporate and household exposures. New PD models for corporates was implemented in Q3, and in Q4, the new PD model for household exposures will be implemented. The latter is expected to reduce the CET1 requirement by approximately SEK 3 billion. Net of cancellation of the related Pillar 2 requirement associated with the model application process.
The customer's appreciation of Handelsbanken's locally connected and personal business model was again conferred by several external annual surveys during the quarter, such as the EPSI survey. We always adjust our local presence and branch network based on customer demand. In this quarter, we announced the opening of a new branch in Canary Wharf in London. To note, the shareholder value creation continued to be stable with several days of new all-time highs in the share price during the quarter. Handelsbanken's business model is based on long-term customer relationships and local presence with our advisors working physically close to our customers in our branch network. This enables not only superior service and customer satisfaction, but also a deep knowledge of the local market circumstances and ability to quickly monitor and act on potential changes in the risk profile of the customer base.
The geographical presence outside of our historical core in Sweden has been built up very carefully over the decades in northwestern European countries. Our belief is that running a bank with our risk appetite works very well in countries with long-standing, stable democracies, with large economies, and stable political, legal, and regulatory structures. It is also essential that there is a material potential for long-term profitable growth over time, and that there is a broad potential customer base that attributes a high value to our today perhaps unique way of doing banking. We find these prerequisites well met in our home markets, Norway, the U.K., and the Netherlands. The bank's business model delivers a steadily growing value over time. Over the past decades, the annual growth in equity plus dividends has been around 14%-15%.
The fact that our business model is appreciated by customers was again confirmed in external surveys during the quarter. The EPSI surveys in our home market showed that the bank has, in all home markets, a higher customer satisfaction than the industry average, both on the retail and the corporate side. Our digital offering in the mobile app and the online banking in especially Sweden also renders high customer appreciation. In Sweden, Handelsbanken again scored higher than the industry average and our larger peers on both the app and the online banking, ranked in this year's S3 EPSI survey. Furthermore, for the fifth consecutive year, the bank received the award Business Bank of the Year in Sweden, and for the 14th consecutive year, Sweden's SME Bank by Finansbarometern.
In Global Finance annual ranking, Handelsbanken moved up one notch from last year being recognized as the safest commercial bank in Europe to this year being recognized at the global top as the world's safest commercial bank. Which has been the case for a long time, no other privately owned bank in the world has a higher combined credit rating by the leading rating agencies. We consider these recognitions as testaments to our strength and of our customers and the way we operate within our business model. Now, if we take a look at the recent business volume development in our four home markets, starting with Sweden, accounting for approximately 75% of the operating profits in our home markets. In Sweden, we are the biggest lender combined in the market. Loan volumes overall in Sweden have only grown marginally throughout the past year.
Household mortgage lending has grown slightly, while the corporate lending volumes have been down slightly. In terms of corporate lending in Sweden, we do see an underlying growth, but the net growth figure has been hampered by the departure of some, sometimes fairly large customers that the bank has considered drifting away from our preferred risk profile for the various reasons and therefore left the books. In Q3, we have seen an underlying higher customer activity, which often is a leading indicator for coming lending growth. The savings business continued to progress well with AUM increased by 23% compared to last year. Operating profit in Sweden grew by 5% in the quarter. The cost to income ratio improved to 32%, and the profitability increased to 16.5%.
In the U.K., which accounts for 13% of the profits in the home markets, we have for the past year and a half seen a consistent growth in both our household and corporate lending. In local currency, the household lending was up 5% and the corporate lending 9% compared to Q3 last year. The loan growth figure in Q3 was the highest we've seen since Q2 2018, underlying the positive momentum we now see. The bank still has a fairly small market share in the U.K., but is now consistently gaining market share. Given the very large size of the U.K. market, the growth potential is therefore significant over time for the bank. The AUM increased by 10%. Operating profit grew by 5% compared to Q2 and 2% in local currency. The cost income ratio improved to 59.8%, and the profitability was stable at 12%.
The U.K. is the market where we stand out the most in terms of headroom to peers when it comes to customer satisfaction. Having a very appreciated offering together with opportunity to gain market share in a large market suggests a good potential for profitable growth over time. In Norway, which accounts for 9% of the profits in the home markets, we stated two years ago that we needed to see a better balance between deposits, savings, and lending. Over the past year, the lending volume have dropped somewhat, but we can note that the negative trend appears to have flattened out over the past two quarters. Competition remains fierce in the market. The key improvements in Norway is seen in the savings business.
Over the past two years, the market share of net inflows into mutual funds in Norway has been around two times the market share of the outstanding volumes. The growth in asset management was 25% compared to last year. The operating profit increased by 6% in the quarter and 4% in local currency. The cost to income ratio improved to 43.8%, and the profitability improved to 11.3%. Finally, the Netherlands, which accounts for 3% of the profits in our home markets, and where, just like in the U.K., the distance to peers in terms of customer satisfaction is particularly large. Lending volume increased by 2% in the quarter, and the growth has been steadily and strong over the past year, up 10% compared to Q3 last year, driven by 18% growth in corporate lending.
Just like in the U.K., the market is very large and the growth potential significant over time for the bank. Also here we have a trend for numerous quarters with strong growth in AUM, which grew by 26% compared to last year. Operating profit increased by 13% in the quarter and 11% in local currency. The cost to income ratio improved to 50.8%, and the profitability increased to 11.7%. Now if we look at the group financials of Q3 compared to Q2. ROE improved to 13.5% and the cost income ratio to 42.3%. NII increased marginally but was down marginally adjusted for currency effects. Fee and commission grew by 6%, mainly driven by increased AUM and payment fees. The NFR bounced back to the long term average level of around SEK 500 million after the temporary drop in the previous quarter.
Adjusted for currency effects, total income increased by 3%. Expenses showed yet another quarter of decline and dropped 1%. Adjusted for currency effects and Oktogonen provision, the decline was 3%. The credit loss ratio was 0 basis points. Regulatory fees dropped as the previous quarter included the cost for mandatory interest-free deposits at the central bank, covering the period until next summer. All in all, the underlying operating profit increased by 10%, primarily driven by higher income and lower costs. If we now switch over and look at the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year, ROE increased to 13.3%, and the cost-income ratio improved to 42%. NII declined by 8%, adjusted for currency effects. The decline was related to lower margins in the wake of lower short-term market rates. Net fee and commission income, on the other hand, increased by 9%.
The key driver was the savings business with strong inflows and positive market developments. All in all, total income dropped by 4% on an underlying basis. Expenses dropped by 3% and 1% adjusted for currency effects in Oktogonen and provisions. The decline was actively achieved despite the annual salary revision that comes into force on January 1st each year, general cost inflation, and increased spend in IT development. The credit loss ratio was zero basis points, and the operating profit dropped by 3%, on an underlying basis by 8%. Now, if we move over and take a closer look at the NII development compared to the previous quarter, as I mentioned earlier, the NII increased slightly over the quarter. It is positive to note that volume growth is again starting to filter through into the quarter-to-quarter NII development.
Increased lending and deposit volume contributed with SEK 87 million, or 1% of the NII in the quarter. The net of margins and funding, however, affected negatively by SEK 194 million. This was mainly an effect of higher funding costs that we have not met in the yields on certain assets, such as central bank deposits, and also through competition, making it hard to fully transfer higher funding costs into the customer rates.
Moving on, the day count effect due to one more day in the quarter added to SEK 31 million, and the currency effects due to a weaker krona on average contributed together with SEK 112 million. Other effects were minor. Net fee and commission income reached the highest level recorded so far and was up 12% compared to last year. The bulk of the fee and commission relates to the savings business, especially in the mutual funds business.
Continually strong net inflows into AUM as well as positive market development increased the savings-related fees by 16% compared to last year. Other fees increased by 2% compared to last year, primarily driven by payment-related fees. Again, we would like to highlight the consistency in the organic growth on the savings business. The bank's market share of outstanding mutual funds volumes in Sweden is 12%, but over the past decade, the bank has attracted 28% of all net inflows into the market. For the first nine months of 2026, 35% of the net inflows into the Swedish mutual funds market went into Handelsbanken funds. Over time, these strong net inflows have added significant customer AUM. Over the past decade, the bank has seen accumulated net inflows of almost SEK 330 billion, significantly outpacing peers.
This success comes not only from an appreciated offering and strong performance in the funds over the years, but also the bank's distribution capacity where advisors are close to and have deep relationships with the customers parallel to an appreciated offering and distribution in our digital channels. Now over to the expenses. Total expenses were up 1% compared to Q3 last year. Staff costs, excluding Oktogonen, were marginally up and other expenses marginally down.
Perhaps relevant to note is that the sideways-moving expenses, including annual salary revisions, general inflation, and an increased IT development spent over the period. As we highlighted in Q2 report, the bank spends a lot of resources embracing new technology such as, of course, in the field of AI. The bank invests roughly SEK 3 billion-SEK 3.5 billion per year in IT development. The investments in AI fits within the current run rate of our IT spending.
Next slide show our asset quality and the credit losses. Over the past decades, credit losses have been very low, which they should be in a bank with Handelsbanken's risk appetite. The difference compared to peers really shows in the volatile times when there is an economic downturn. The average quarterly credit losses since 2019 has been SEK 3 million per quarter, equal to 0 basis points. That includes not only the outbreak of the pandemic, but also sharp swings in policy rates and inflation, the disruption of supply chains following geopolitical uncertainties with the wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East, etc. Still, more or less no credit losses, underlining the strength in the asset quality of the bank. The bank is in a solid financial position. Credit risks, funding risks, liquidity risks, and market-related risks are prudently managed, and the capital position is strong.
After an anticipated dividend for the first nine months of the year of almost SEK 16 billion, corresponding to SEK 8 per share and 92% of the earnings for the period, the CET1 ratio was 250 basis points above the regulatory requirement. Hence, as previously mentioned, well within the target range. Over the past several years, the bank has, as well as our peers, had applications at the FSA for new PD models for corporate and household exposures. In Q2, our PD models for corporate exposures was approved. This was implemented in Q3, and in conjunction with that, the Pillar 2 add-on of 14 basis points for the corporate PD models application process was removed. In the beginning of October, the bank also received approval for the new PD models for household exposures.
This will be implemented in Q4 and is expected to increase the risk exposure amount by around SEK 1 billion. In conjunction with the implementation of this model in Q4, the Pillar 2 on the 28 basis points related to the application process will be removed. This means that we estimate that in Q4, the approved PD models for household exposures should lead to a net reduction of capital need of around SEK 3 billion. The two PD models approvals mark a milestone after five years of dialogue with the FSA, which has included everything from the setup, assumptions, validations, and processes and routines behind the model. Obviously, the internal work with the now approved PD model has been both time-consuming and resource-intensive, and we are very happy that we now have come as far as we have.
Not the least, the approval marks a confirmation of the quality of our models. A lso from this perspective, the bank is in a very solid place. Finally, to wrap up, Q3 was a stable quarter for the bank with increased earnings and profitability. Income increased, cost decreased, credit quality remains strong. All home markets improved earnings. Business volume grew. The capital position is solid, enabling the bank to anticipate healthy dividend. The strong customer appreciation of our local and customer-oriented business model was once again confirmed by annual external surveys in the quarter. The continuous, and important to note, stable value creation for our shareholders continued with positive development also reflected in the all-time highs in the share price during this quarter. With those final remarks, we will now take a short break before moving into the Q&A session. Thank you.
Welcome back, and welcome to this Q&A session. This is Peter Grabe, Head of Investor Relations speaking. Joining me in this session we have Michael Green, the CEO, and Mårten Bjurman, CFO. As always, we would like to remind that we appreciate if you ask one question at a time in order to make sure that everyone gets a chance to ask their question. All follow-up questions are, of course, warmly welcomed after everyone has had a chance to ask a question. With those words, operator, could we have the first question, please?
Thank you. To ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to the first question. Your first question today comes from the line of Magnus Andersson from ABG Sundal Collier. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Just on volumes, considering that the lending volume growth is flat quarter-on-quarter in Sweden and flat quarter-on-quarter in Norway, down year in Norway, while growing in the U.K. I was wondering about Sweden and Norway, whether you are taking any proactive measures to drive volume growth, meaning, are you reviewing the way you look at profitability per client, your onboarding procedures, etc? Related to Sweden, you talked about those volumes that left the book. I thought that was earlier in the year. Did you have those effects also in Q3? That is my question.
Thank you, Magnus, and good morning. This is Mårten speaking. The corporate lending, if I start with Sweden then, I would like to phrase it this way. If we have a quarter or a couple of quarters that we are lagging behind the market a little bit in terms of volume, that is not a major concern for us. That being said, though, of course, this is an important market for us, obviously, and we are not happy with us lagging behind at all. We are long-term, and we believe strongly in our business model, as you know, Magnus, the decentralized way of working, and no, we have not made any major changes to that. We don't feel the need to do it. Quite the opposite, actually.
We feel that our customers are really attributing a high value to our way of working and our product and offerings is still valid from that perspective. I would like to highlight a few things then. Michael alluded to this is a net number, obviously. As you said, Magnus, we have performed what I would call a little bit of housekeeping of the books, primarily in the former part of the year. We have seen that also a little bit in Q3, not as much as in the previous quarter, but still this is not a one-time thing. This is something that we do continuously. That can happen anytime, and we are happy to do so. That is basically a guarantee for prudent banking long term.
For us to be able to provide our shareholder value long term, it is key for us to have a credit quality, obviously, in the books. I think also if we dig a little bit deeper into what is happening here in Sweden, we see that some trigger points are really there now in terms of our activity in the branch offices. We see a little bit of signs here and there. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time. I agree with your point. We need to have a little bit patience. I would obviously like to have presented a different number today, but we are looking forward to the future from that regard.
Okay. May I just follow up on the U.K., where you are growing in local currencies, both quarter-on-quarter, year-on-year, but it looks like NII has a different, weaker trajectory. If you could say something about that, and also if you would be willing to share with us what portion of your mortgage lending is now done through the broker channels versus your own.
We have basically three channels in terms of mortgages in our U.K. business. One is the local broker-led channel, and the second one is the nationwide broker-led channel, and obviously the third one is our day-to-day business that we are used to, i.e., the branch offices directly. All of these three lines are working well now for the moment, and as you can see, perhaps, is that we are outgrowing the market pace in terms of volume growth in the mortgage market in U.K. I am even more happy with the corporate lending growth in U.K. It has been steady now for some time. We have really felt that we are on a good track, and we have a good momentum throughout the branch office network. It is a broad and sound growth. It is not just one or two branch offices working. It is quite the opposite, actually.
That is happening. Marginal-wise, if you zoom into the margins, yes, they are decreasing a bit, and that's just market conditions. We will obviously see, if you look at our U.K. business long term, should bear in mind that this operation is built to handle a lot larger volumes. We can do so and not adding basically any cost. T his is a scale game that's happening, and it's taking a little bit of time, but we are doing it carefully. As you know, Magnus, we're building a strong bank in U.K. as well.
Yeah. Y ou wouldn't attribute the margin compression to a changed distribution mix? That's what you're saying.
Hi, Magnus. This is Michael speaking. If I'm not remembering it incorrectly, I think we've also, if you compare year-on-year, we've had a cut in the Bank of England's rate, I think of 25 basis points. That is also a margin pressure, as you know, for banking. W e have to bear that in mind as well.
Yeah, but that's the year-on-year. A lso quarterly in Q2 and Q3, you had worse NII development than volumes, so that is why I am wondering. I agree with you, Michael, on the year-on-year numbers.
Yeah, I can just reiterate what I just said, that we see a margin pressure in all basically our home markets, and U.K.'s is perhaps not as bad as some other markets, but we feel the margin pressure there as well.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Andreas Håkansson from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Just following up a little bit on Magnus' question. When you say that you are deselecting corporates, could you tell us, it sounds like you are doing that because you don't like the risk, rather than that you don't like the profitability of these loans. Could you just confirm that?
Yeah, that is correct, Andreas, and thank you for that question. Again, it can be credit risk. It can be other factors or parameters that we weigh into the equation when we feel that this connection is long term not for us. I t is purely from a risk perspective, yes.
So you could basically have left high area type of loans just because you don't live up to the zero loan loss provision target. Is that how we should read it?
Yeah. Andreas, we do business with the counterparts that we see fit over time for the risk that we like to have on our books, and as Mårten just said, of course, we know exactly how much we earn on each and every corporate loan we have. T he overall perspective is to have a risk on our books that really our shareholder enjoys over time. This is nothing to do with margins and pricing. If we don't like the counterpart for whatever reason, we will exit that and go for something else, which we also have done. We have added on numerous business as well in the quarter with much better profile in terms of risk, but also, of course, on the returns.
Okay. Then relating to NII as well, you throughout the report talk about margins and funding in one sentence, really. Could you tell us a little bit, how does the competitive margin pressure impact your NII compared to the funding structure? We saw, for example, that you started issuing covered bonds again after having been declining that for quite some time. Could you split the two out so we get a better understanding of the real drivers of NII, please?
Yeah, I can try and do that, but bear in mind that there are so many parameters affecting the NII at the end. Y es, competition is one key factor, and in this quarter, I wouldn't say that we have too much of a lag effect of that sort that we have talked about in previous quarters. It's rather that we have, as Michael said in the beginning here, that we have not been able to take out the increased funding cost on our customers. That is the bulk of it in this, and we have no change in funding structure whatsoever. We have no change in how we operate in that field from a treasury point of view.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Nicolas McBeath from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Good morning. You flagged the upcoming capital requirement release in Q4 due to the retail PD models. Just wondering if there's anything else in terms of capital requirements or capital drivers that we should take into consideration for Q4, and if you think that 250 basis points management buffer is a reasonable assumption for you to steer towards when you think about and decide on the dividend for 2026.
Yeah, thank you for those questions. No, these were the two major things that we had in this field. Obviously, the PD models that we have now approved is what we said, it's a huge thing for us. It is a true milestone in not only from a capital point of view, it's also a little bit of a mark of quality in terms of our processes operationally. We have basically worked with this for five years, so it's a big thing from that perspective. No, we don't foresee any major things coming up from that.
That being said, though, there is always a dialogue, discussion, and work to be done in terms of modeling. T hese are the major steps that we have looked forward to in recent past. Regarding the 2.5%, we don't steer towards anything. It's basically we've set a range. As you know now, we are in the range. We are happy for that. We have a great feeling for the latter part of the year from a capital perspective for the known reasons. We don't guide, and it is basically not up to management to set that ultimate level.
To some extent, you do steer towards 250 basis points because you ended up there this quarter again. That seems to be the way how you derive at your dividend anticipation. Shouldn't we read anything towards into that kind of level, or is it just a decision that will be made again and again every quarter?
T o me at least, Q1, Q2, and Q3 is a little bit different from Q4. Those are in between quarters and we don't have a huge debate each quarter on where we want to be if we are in the interval as we are today. The major discussion and debate will be held in the latter part of the year.
Okay. Sounds good. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Gulnara Saitkulova from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Question on return on equity. You delivered return on equity of 13.5%, while many Nordic peers are targeting and generating returns closer to 15%, and many of the European peers are aiming for even higher levels through the cycle. What do you see as the key strategic levers available for Handelsbanken to close that ROE gap over time? Where do you think Handelsbanken is performing particularly well today, and where do you see the greatest opportunities for improvement?
What do you expect to be the key drivers of that improvement going forward? A couple of details from here. From a strategic perspective, how do you see the customer preferences and behaviors evolving in relation to the traditional branch model, particularly given the rapid advancement of AI and digital tools? Are you seeing any meaningful decline in branch visits compared with several years ago? Have customer demand for in-person services remained relatively stable? How do you see this evolving over the next two years? Thank you.
Okay. That was more than one question, I think, and a broader question as well, but I will try my best here to navigate you through those. First of all, the corporate target is a relative one. It's kind of hard to short-term or long-term set a fixed target from that perspective. Obviously, we want to close that gap as far as we can. We are reasonably happy with where we are today with our ROE number. There is not one answer to the question how in the bank you increase ROE. Obviously, it's basically down to the business model as such, how we work with our customers, stay close to them, understand their needs, and provide an offering that is fit for purpose. As we do so, also keep our costs obviously in good control.
I think we are on an extremely good path for the moment. We see exciting things happening in the U.K. market, for example, and also in the Netherlands, where we have small market shares. We have exceptionally good momentum in terms of both volumes and also customer satisfaction levels that outperforms the market and the peers in those two markets. Since we have those small market shares, I think it is very obvious that our potential is great. I think that was one part of your question. Sweden obviously is a huge market for us. We discussed it a little bit earlier, but you shouldn't expect us to outgrow the market significantly over time in that market, but rather stay more or less in line with GDP, as we have said earlier on. I think also you touched upon our way of banking.
I think you used the term traditional banking way or something like that, and customer behavior or something like that. In the recent past, I think we have learned that our model is very appreciated also among our youngest customers. In these times when we see a lot of AI features coming into play, I think it is more and more value to be attributed to the possibility to come into a branch office, sit down next to or close to one of our advisors to go through the financial situation. I don't think that will ever be outdated, to be honest. Not in my lifetime, at least. From that perspective, that was a little bit of a remark there.
If I just may add more , we invest and we look very deeply into one new technology, including AI, can contribute to the way we perform going forward. That will mostly come in play in terms of maybe creating more efficiency around the bank. We have so many ongoing projects with regards to both efficiency, but also actually contributing to even stronger offering to our customers. AI is an amazing and very important technical development that will have a huge impact on many businesses. W e listen to customers, and if you look into also what AI actually can do, it is a superb way of creating, collecting data points and run models and whatnot.
T he AI does not take into consideration follow-up, history, the way a family looks like, life events that goes on in a person's life. It cannot bring real confidence, but it could do a lot of stuff. I'm very convinced that the combination of a very strong, of course, digital offering, taking consideration both offering and execution. When you combine that with our long-term, very decentralized and personal way of adding relationship to our customers will even be stronger actually going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question today comes from the line of Jacob Hesslevik from SEB. Please go ahead.
Good morning. In Q2, you said the negative spread on your central bank cash is not a one-off as long as the market rates stay above policy rates. LCR has since fallen to 172% from 190% a year ago when the liquidity reserve is at circa SEK 850 billion, also down year-over-year. Are you running down central bank liquidity to cut that drag? How low are you willing to go?
No, we are not taking down that volume. Obviously that has had an effect in the Q3 NII, as you alluded to, as market rates have gone up and policy rate not following to 100%. That has had an impact. No, we have not changed our way of working there.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question today comes from the line of Namita Samtani from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Morning, and thank you for taking my question. You speak about competition making it hard to fully transfer higher funding costs into the customer rates. I just wondered, is this on the corporate or the household side? Can you give more color there on the subcategories if it is corporate, for example, large corporates or SME and what type of industry? Or if it is on the household side, is it the larger cities in Sweden or the floating or the fixed side? Thank you.
No. If I start on the mortgage side, we see really thin margins on a mortgage. It all comes down to whether you want to see that product stand alone or if you want to look at the customer's entire business with us. We are trying our best to do the latter, of course, since a mortgage stand-alone is not very profitable under these circumstances in Sweden, and not in Norway either for that sake. I think that is a broad picture. I think the margin pressure in the corporate side in Sweden is also something that we feel is very broad. I don't want to say that we see very large differences in terms of sectors or so in terms of margin pressure. It is very broad for the moment.
Thanks. Can I just follow up? Are you saying on the corporate lending margins on the new lending, it is below the back book?
It is hard to say. I don't have that figure for the moment. It is basically up to each and every of our business responsible, obviously, to set the price. We don't have central pricing in that sense. I n some occasions, obviously, we are below back book. I don't have the full figure there.
That is helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question today comes from the line of Sofie Peterzens from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. Thanks a lot for taking my question. I just had a question on deposit competitions. We saw a 6% quarter-on-quarter decline in corporate deposits in the Netherlands. Also when I look at deposits, they are growing below loans in Netherlands and U.K. on a year-on-year basis. Also on a group level, you are growing deposits slower on a quarter-on-quarter basis compared to loans.
I was wondering, what are you seeing in terms of deposit competition, both in Sweden and outside of Sweden? Are you seeing pressure to start to increase pricing given that rates went up in the Euro area? If you could just comment what you are seeing on the deposit side and also your strategy here. Then just a very quick question. On the resolution fund fee, should we expect that to continue in 2027 or is it fair to assume it will drop off? Could you potentially get the new banking tax? Thank you.
Thank you, Sofie. Yeah, we are happy to see also that our deposit volumes are generally going up. That is something that we have had in focus. We haven't set a target obviously for that, but we have had it in focus and it's all about broadening the business with the customers and also the type of customers that are likely to deposit money with us. If we zoom in on the Netherlands, in that particular market we've had a little bit of an outflow and that's because of one or two major corporates that have withdrawn their deposits with us.
That happens and in the Netherlands that will have an effect since it's really a small volume there. You can say also that on the corporate side, it's always more volatile than the retail side in general. You shouldn't read too much into those numbers. Then the latter part of your question was related to regulatory fees, if I remember.
Yeah.
Yes, resolution fees?
The resolution fund fee and potential new banking tax in Sweden.
We unfortunately have no comments to have on that topic, I'm afraid.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Thank you a lot for taking my question. I just wanted to be 100% sure I understood correctly the message you conveyed on model approval with those on corporate PD models on retail by the end of 2026. Is the model review done? Can we put that to bed? I just want to be 100% sure about that. Maybe a quick follow-up. You have a very high payout ratio of 90%- something in the nine months. Does it mean you see no opportunities of external growth better than returning basically all your capital to your shareholders? Thank you.
Yeah, let me clear that for you then. The PD corporate models, they were approved in Q2 and implemented in this quarter. That is behind us. I think when it comes to PD households, that was approved now in Q3 and will be implemented in Q4. Obviously, the net effect of the SEK 3 billion , it comes with us implementing those models. Obviously we have work to do here under Q4, but we are confident that we will do so. By that, those two models will be behind us and implemented by the year-end. Also-
No.
Yes?
Sorry to interrupt. That is clear. I just want to be sure then, once this is done, that is all. Am I right? In terms of model approval, model reassessment, retail.
Sorry, these models are the largest models that we work with. There's always going to be smaller models included in the internal numbers, but that's just an ongoing. T hese are the major and the absolute largest models, which makes them very important for us.
That's what I wanted to be sure about. That's fair enough, okay.
Sure.
With regard to the payouts and capital use?
Perhaps if you would repeat that for us, t hank you so much.
Sure, very quickly. Just wondering, given that you have a very high payout ratio, 90%- something in the nine months, if I am not mistaken. I was just wondering whether you see no external growth opportunities at the moment, so you prefer to basically return all the capital you generate to your shareholders.
No. I think, again, we are always looking into different ways of growth. That being said, though, our preferred way of growing is organically. It takes a little bit more time, but it serves a purpose in terms of prudency and all that, and we are happy that way. I wouldn't rule out M&As for the future, but nothing on the table as for now.
Thank you. Very clear, thanks a lot.
Thank you. Our next question today comes from the line of Shrey Srivastava from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, and thank you very much for taking my question. It's a more fundamental question, which is that you've mentioned that you don't expect to grow above the market in Sweden over the long run, and we've seen pretty sluggish volume growth there for the last few years. Despite this, you obviously also point out that your customer satisfaction ratings are at the top of peers. Is this an opportunity for you to go back and look at your total addressable market and see if there's any new markets you could potentially enter within Sweden? I'm talking about, for example, equity release mortgages or something where you feel is aligned with your risk appetite. I'm just really interested to hear what sort of conversations you have internally on this. Thank you.
It was not that long ago when we decided to leave Denmark and also Finland. As for now and since then, we are extremely firm in our belief that these four markets are the correct ones for us for the moment. We have no discussion ongoing as it regards entering into any new home market. Also as you refer to if there are different pockets in the Swedish market where we could increase our lending growth or take a risk at different segments, this is not the way we work in the bank. It is not going to be like me or somebody else from the executive management pointing out whether you should go to different sectors.
This is all done with the Handelsbanken way, with the drive and the business comes from the branches and also our large corporate branch, and of course also institutions. That is where it starts, and if we see a fit for risk purpose and also returns in different segments that suits us well, we will go there. It is not going to be that we, from my perspective, point out certain directions that we want to grow. This is not the way Handelsbanken is doing. We are very decentralized in our business model, as you know, so that is where it starts.
That is understood, thank you very much. There are certain infrastructure and capabilities you need to implement top-down before adding a new product capability, as you know well, which you cannot implement at a branch level. Surely at some level, there has to be a group-wide decision of, "This is the infrastructure we need to put in place."
Yeah. The offer we are always working with how to make sure that we can provide capacity in the market. If demands will come, it will filter up to us, and of course, we need to invest in certain things to be able to address the market. I t comes from our business people doing it within our branches. If that means that we need to adjust, we always adjust and adapt in terms of product and infrastructure to be able to offer a competitive offer in the market. It's nothing new actually. It will filter through. If there is a demand, we will take a look at it. If it needs to be adjusted in the product and the way we do business for this purpose, we of course take a look at that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now take our final question for today, and the final question comes from the line of Hari Sivakumaran from KBW. Please go ahead.
Hi there. I want to ask on loan growth, but maybe more on the near-term opportunities, just given that we're about to start a rate hiking cycle. I guess what we saw last time was households, property management companies were repaying and amortizing debt. I guess it was a much steeper rate hiking cycle. Just how do you think what will happen to customer behavior this time around? Then, just if that does potentially limit the near-term growth opportunities, how does that then influence the decision-making around the 250 basis points capital buffer? Thanks.
Yeah, to start with the last thing. The capital buffer is not for debate right now. That will be done in due time when we always do it. I am not really sure I understood the question actually, the first one.
Yeah, just the last time we had the rate hiking cycle.
O kay, I got it. C ool.
Yeah.
We don't estimate what our customers will do. We will adjust and adapt to what they do. It is reasonable to, if the interest rate hikes or increases, the people who want and have the ability to amortize, they will probably do that a little bit more than other times, and that is what we saw last time we had an interest rate hike. Now, our macroeconomic people in the bank, they estimate one or two interest rate hikes. It is not at all as it was, as we see now, when we assess it now, as it was a couple of years ago. If the interest rate goes up 0.25 or 0.5, we will see. It is not anything dramatic in that, and the customers are always behaving rational, and we will just follow them and do what they need to have and offer that.
Thanks.
Thank you. That was our final question for today. I will now hand the call back to the room.
T hank you everyone for listening in and for all the questions. As always, of course, if you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to the investor relations department. With those words, we wish you all a good day. Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.