Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the preliminary results 2023 conference call of Raiffeisen Bank International. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Johann Strobl, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much for your kind introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to join us today. We are happy to share with you our preliminary results for full year 2023, and it has been indeed a very busy year. We have made progress reducing our exposure to Russia, and we will discuss this in just a minute. Our balance sheet is as strong as ever. We have further improved our CET1 ratio, both as a consolidated group and, more importantly, in the pro forma, full write-off in Russia. Consequently, our MDA buffer improves above 500 basis points and 475, excluding Russia. Portfolio quality is excellent, and despite some defaults in commercial real estate, I'm satisfied that Hannes has us in a great shape.
While we cannot exclude further provisions and higher coverage ratios from there, there may eventually be room for releases when restructuring and workout is complete. Finally, liquidity remains excellent, and I will touch on this in a few slides' time. Operationally, we have seen good revenue growth and costs in line with our expectations. While this may be very difficult to replicate in the coming year, I'm confident that we are starting the year on the right foot. Clearly, the biggest frustration for us this year has been the large amount of provisions for litigation in Poland. Here, I can simply share that we are broadening our settlement program and targeting one more and more borrowers. Settlements, of course, allow for a less negative outcome versus what we currently are providing for. We have updated our outlook for 2024, which I will discuss in a few minutes.
Before we get into the numbers, let's go through some important items. First of all, the board will recommend a dividend of EUR 1.25 to be voted on at our annual shareholder meeting on April 4. As relates to the OFAC request for information, I simply wish to confirm that we have submitted everything that was requested, and we await feedback. We remain absolutely confident that our systems are robust and that we are fully compliant across the board. Finally, I can confirm that the STRABAG dividend in kind is on track. Let us move to our next slide and look at this transaction in closer detail. On December 20 of last year, we announced the acquisition of a large stake in STRABAG, initially to be purchased using equity at our Russian subsidiary and subsequently to be transferred to Vienna by way of a dividend in kind.
Strategically, this allows us to significantly reduce our exposure to Russia and repatriate around EUR 1.5 billion. This transaction does not affect the sales process, nor does it change our stated goal of disconsolidating the Russian subsidiary. Our participation in STRABAG will be managed as a long-term investment. STRABAG is one of the largest construction companies in our region, with a leading market share across most countries in Central Europe and a very solid underlying business. Considering the current limitations on dividends from Russia, I believe this is an excellent alternative. This investment will be consolidated at equity with our share of STRABAG profits reflected in RBI's income statement. It is no secret that this stake was previously related to a sanctioned individual, and we spent considerable time and effort diligently verifying that the proposed transaction is compliant with all applicable sanctions.
We set a very high hurdle on this point and only proceeded to sign and announce the transaction after achieving sufficient comfort. We are now in the process of obtaining the required approvals, and I can simply confirm that everything is on track, and we have filed all the required applications. We expect to close the transaction in the first quarter, and the full impact will be visible at our next quarterly update. Let's move to slide six. This brings me to my next slide, which is an update on the Russian subsidiary. As I mentioned, the Strabag deal will help us to reduce our exposure to Russia while we continue to work towards the deconsolidation of our Russian unit. Perhaps it is also important to reiterate that the Strabag deal has no impact on the sales process.
As I mentioned to you last time, we believe that a sale is still more likely than a spin-off. Both options remain available to us, of course, but for the time being, we are prioritizing a sale. There's little more that I can say today, which you anyhow know everything already. What I would like to focus on today is the broad de-risking, which we have executed in 2023 and will continue to do in 2024. On the balance sheet side, you are familiar with the reduction of the overall lending portfolio, specifically in euro and U.S. dollar loans to customers are now less than EUR 500 million and will be run off completely. Loans to banks, at this point, are mainly at MOEX and the CBR for ruble and to RBI for U.S. dollar and euro.
We are actively steering a reduction in deposits, both in local currency and in euro and U.S. dollar. In ruble, this is mainly achieved by pricing on corporate deposits, as well as in retail saving products, as well as restrictions where possible on new accounts. It should be mentioned that there are legal requirements, specifically in retail, which we are diligently abide by. For euro and U.S. dollar, we have a bit more flexibility, and we have made good progress. We've also been actively steering for a reduction in payments. By number of transactions, we are back to pre-war levels, which is now the cap which we have set for ourselves. By market share, we have now reduced our share by more than 50% from the peak. We have implemented strict country and industry policies, which also apply to our trade finance and export finance business.
This brings us to slide 7, and an overview of key figures for 2023. Group consolidated profit and ROE reflect another exceptional year in Russia, and our CET1 ratio reflects both the excellent profitability and the RWA management this year. More important, however, is the adjusted view, which we share with you below. Excluding Russia and Belarus, the group earned just around EUR 1 billion for an ROE of 7.6%. Included here are EUR 873 million of provisions for litigation in Poland. If we were to also exclude these provisions in Poland and look at the underlying earning power of the bank, or at least what the bank will look like in the future, we would have come to an ROE of around 15%.
For the group, excluding Russia, the CET1 ratio is now 14.6%, up from 14% a year ago. You might also choose to add 65 basis points for a few further operational RWA relief, which would follow a deconsolidation of the Russian business. We will discuss this again on slide 14, and of course, we expect a further 125 basis points or so from this STRABAG dividend in kind. Moving to slide 8. I will again focus on the lower half of the slide and the figures excluding Russia and Belarus. Loans to customers are slightly down on the year, also, this is largely explained by lower repo and money market volumes. Core retail and corporate lending volumes are broadly flat on the year. OpEx are in line with guidance, while the cost income ratio remains around 50%, driven by the excellent NII growth.
Let's look now closer to the core revenues this year on slide 9, with NII up by over 26% on the year. On the one hand, you have a full year's benefit of higher rates across the region and the continued tailwinds from euro rate hikes. Also, in Q4, higher rates continued to feed through, and in Central Europe, we benefited from our treasury and hedging positions. As we head into 2024 and expect different degrees of rate cuts across our markets, our NII guidance is expected to decline to somewhere between EUR 4 billion and EUR 4.1 billion. The biggest impact will be visible in head office and in Hungary, where we expect to see the most rate cuts. Fee income was strong in Q4, while on a yearly basis, it was broadly flat.
In the head office, 2022 has benefited from higher volumes and margin on ruble payments and FX, and this trend has largely reversed in 2023. Moving to slide 10. Again, we see the loan development this year, as mentioned, the decrease on the year as well as in Q4, attributable to lower repo and money market volumes, while the core of the business remained broadly flat. As a look ahead to 2024, we can already guide to a mid-single volume growth. Some of this will come from postponed 2023 projects, and some will come from the combination of a better economic growth and lower rates. With our very good CET1 ratio and excellent portfolio quality, we should grow in line or above the market average, depending on products and countries. On the liability side, deposits have remained broadly stable.
Perhaps the only outflow worth mentioning are in head office in our group corporates and market segment. As we discussed on our last call, we do some volatility, we do see some volatility in the very short-dated, very price-sensitive deposits. These have no liquidity value for us, and we do not fund our business with these deposits. If anything, our rock-solid funding position means that we do not have to compete on price for these. Which brings me to my next slide and the overview of the liquidity situation across the group. I will be brief there and simply confirm that our liquidity ratios are very stable at high levels. This is true at group level, at each of our separate subsidiaries, and of course, in head office.
We have monitored this very closely in recent quarters, attentive to the potential effect of higher rates, higher funding costs, as well as spillover effects from the war in Ukraine. In head office, where we are largely funded by corporate and wholesale products, we continue to maintain a sizable excess liquidity position, supported by long-term funding activities. As you might recall from our previous calls, we run a daily internal liquidity stress test, in which we assume 100% customer and wholesale outflows for the next 12 months. Under these scenarios, we still would have around EUR 5 billion of excess liquidity after 12 months. To be clear, this is achieved by having a largely matched maturity profile on the asset side and assumes a similar run-off here. This scenario is, of course, an extreme one, but it serves to confirm the solidity of our funding and liquidity profile.
Now let's move to slide 12, the capital slide. Starting with the Group CET1 development in fourth quarter, we improved from 16.5 to 17.3, and I think I don't have to run through the details here about inorganic effects, and as probably would talk about it. If we move to slide 13. This is the outlook for 2024 for the group. We start at 17.3, and we expect to end at 17.8. This comes, of course, largely from the good capital generation on the one hand, and the loan growth, which I have already mentioned. Of course, some minor inorganic impacts will be also included here. Moving to slide 14, a pro forma CET1 assumption. If we have to write off the Russian business, these assumptions are well known.
We assume 0 recovery on our equity in Russia. There is no subordinated debt retained by head office, and cross-border exposure is less than EUR 40 million. We also deconsolidate credit RWAs in Russia and market RWAs in Russia, and those booked in head office related to our Russian subsidiaries. This is how we come to 14.6%, up 60 basis points over the past year. I mentioned before, there is further relief of operational RWA. This happens in a second stage, following the deconsolidation of the Russian business and would provide a further 65 basis points uplift. And finally, upon the successful closing of the STRABAG transaction, which we would expect to see this pro forma CET1 ratio increase by an expected 125 basis points at closing.
We also share with you the pro forma capital stack, including Tier 1 and total capital requirements for the group without Russia. AT1 is pretty much fully supplied, and we have circa, 23 basis points surplus on the Tier 2 bucket. Finally, the pro forma MDA buffer is now 475 basis points, including the STRABAG dividend in kind and the full operational RWA relief. On the following slide 15, please find our current capital requirements. At the start of the year, our SREP increased 40 basis points, of which 12 basis points are from a higher Pillar Two requirement and 28 basis points from the combined buffer requirement. Besides this increase in Pillar Two requirement, also lead to small increases in the Tier 1 and total capital requirements. Let's move to slide 16. This is the funding plans for the year ahead.
Our first priority is senior non-preferred in order to support our credit ratings. We will also look to senior preferred, although the absolute amount will depend on how new lending develops. We will also be issuing out of our subsidiaries, in particular the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. This, of course, is to satisfy the MREL requirements under the multi-point of entry approach, and we are very satisfied with the market access that our network banks have demonstrated. Moving to slide 17, macro outlook.... I think, I do not have the rates, but we're happy to see improvements compared to 2023, and these improvements will go even further better in 2025. Moving to slide 18. Our assumption on inflation and based on that assumption, the development of key rates.
Yeah, the peak we have seen, we see some more or less reductions throughout the year in the various countries, depending on where they start from and the development of the inflation. Moving to slide 19, the guidance. We assume a net interest decline compared to 2023. As I mentioned before, somewhere between EUR 4 billion and EUR 4.1 billion, driven by lower central bank rates, lower rates, some ongoing restructuring of client deposits to more expensive ones, reduced positive impact from minimum reserve requirement interest, and some higher funding costs by our MREL issuance requirements. We see some increase in fee and commission income to EUR 1.8 billion, and I mentioned the loan growth by around 6%.
This is in the core group, so without Russia and Belarus, but you also see the impact then on total group level. OpEx around EUR 3.3 billion. We see some ongoing wage pressure and impacts from the inflation. Hannes will talk about risk costs, and based on all these assumptions, we see a consolidated return on equity of around 11 billion. And, before the benefit of a dividend in kind, a flat development in the CET1 ratio at 14.6. And with this, I hand over to Hannes.
Thank you, Johann. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being with us today. This has been a very busy year, but I'm satisfied that we finished the year 2023 in an equally strong, maybe one even could say stronger, compared to 2022. In line with our guidance, while talking about the guidance of the Q3 call, we finished the year with risks of EUR 9.7 million for the group, excluding Russia and Belarus. The initial guidance, of course, was much higher, and on the same parameters, we have increased our overlays by nearly EUR 60 million. We have increased our overlays in some areas, while simultaneously using some of what we booked for commercial real estate.
Going into 2024, we have EUR 423 million of overlays available to us outside of Russia and Belarus, which translates itself into one year's worth of normalized risk costs. Leaving the commercial real estate portfolio aside just for a minute, the quality of the portfolio remains very strong and solid, with the NPE unchanged in 2023, despite the challenging backdrop environment. In retail, delinquencies remain at all-time lows, supported by a very resilient labor market. Overall, our NPE ratio remains below 2%, which I deem to be an excellent, considering the trends in the commercial real estate space, and of course, having a war in two of our countries. In the course of 2023, our external ratings have been affirmed, and we demonstrate very decent results, to be modest here, in the EBA stress test.
We have belonged to the best third among the other market participants. We could show once again the strength of our business model and portfolio quality, the resilient earning power of the bank in forward-looking approach to provisioning. Moving to the fourth quarter, of course, commercial real estate was the main driver of risk costs, and I talked about this in the third quarter already. It goes without saying that I will not discuss any individual names, but I will, of course, comment on the overall portfolio. So what have been the main drivers for the entire commercial real estate? And we talked about this already more than one year ago. It's the increasing yield environment, it's the cost of build, and for some subsegments, of course, demand was also impacted. Just think about the office market.
Well, you know, and you're aware of, and I shared it with you, that we have conducted 2 internal stress tests on our commercial real estate exposure over the last 18 months, and we are confident that our valuations are up to date. Many of our exposures are being backed by solid cash flows, which have also been confirmed in our internal stress tests. Furthermore, so we are very confident and comfortable with the coverage of our defaulted exposure. And as Johann mentioned in the introduction, we may still see some provisions in the coming quarters, including some additional overlays as we proceed with caution.
In Q4, taking away one of your potential questions, we made use of EUR 74 million of commercial real estate overlay available to us and still have another EUR 283 million available, just when talking about commercial real estate overlays available. Well, those of you who have followed us for some time will know that we are reluctant to sell non-performing exposures, and we prefer to restructure or work out the projects in-house. Our track record shows that this achieves a much higher recovery rate, and I expect this time to be no different. Allow me one more last comment on commercial real estate. You have noticed a drop in our group coverage ratio, and this is largely explained by the fact that commercial real estate defaults usually require lower provisioning due to the collateral and guarantee we have.
We also benefit from other mitigants, such as securitization. This simply means the inflow commercial real estate defaulted exposure reduces the average coverage ratio to the portfolio. Let me add one more, remark on this slide. If we talk about coverage ratio, it's just the coverage ratio of the defaulted line, defaulted exposure compared to the individual loan loss provisions. So we are not including in this calculation our collaterals, nor do we include our guarantees, nor do we include our overlays, what we have created. Let me have a look into 2024. Yes, of course, here and there, the one other challenging backdrop may still persist, and we will remain cautious in our underwriting. We will continue to do provision on a forward-looking basis and making full use of our overlays, reacting quickly as issues arise and focusing on our portfolio quality.
We will proactively look to engage with our customers when needed, and as mentioned, restructure and work in-house. Having said this, this leads to a risk cost guidance on the entire group of 60 basis points, and if you would exclude Russia, we would come the risk cost guidance of 60 basis points. Let me move on to the next. Well, you can recognize some small changes in Stage 1 and Stage 2, with some benefit from model updates in retail portfolio, while at the same time we took a few additional provisions here in the non-retail part. The improved outlook across the region, mainly in CE, allows us to release some provisions. As you mentioned, as just mentioned, we made use of some EUR 74 million of commercial real estate overlays in the quarter. In essence, releasing them here and booking on equal amount under Stage 3.
At the same time, we also booked additional overlays in Ukraine and to a lesser extent, in Hungary, where despite the improving outlook, we choose to exercise caution. Finally, Stage 3, here largely reflects commercial real estate provision. As mentioned, the EUR 256 million, so here include also the. If we take a look at the full year provisioning composition as expected, composition as expected, Stage 3 will be the driver, but nicely offset by some macro releases. More importantly, our stock overlays is untouched and still fully available to us in the future. Let me move on to page 23. You can see that our risk-weighted assets have developed from EUR 97 billion to EUR 93.7 billion. And I would just like to earmark two very important pillars in this beautiful chart. The one is the inorganic relief.
So where does this inorganic relief come from? We have benefited from the final approval received, when we have introduced IRB approach to Bausparkasse. Also changed our IRB model from the sovereign model. We switched back to the standard approach. And on the op risk, you see an uplift of EUR 2.5 billion, and this comes just with the point on how op risk RWAs are being calculated. You take the three years observation period, so we lost one year of our observation period. We added another one in 2020, having this very strong GI dynamics, this is causing then higher op risk RWAs. Well, we talked very much about our Swiss franc provisions we had to grade it, to grade, on the Swiss franc Poland portfolio. So I'm now on page 24.
So if you look to the total amount of litigation stock level, we have now piled up EUR 1.6 billion. We have in total 25,800 Swiss franc loan outstanding, whereas already 13,600 are being litigated cases. Which of course, also what is the CET1 equivalent, what is being held against this portfolio? So you go with one hand side, with the litigation provisions being able to us and also what still of capital consumption comes from risk weights . We are in the market with a settlement offer, which goes very much in line with the KNF proposal. Well, page 25 is well known to you and is more for documentation issues. Having said all this, we are eager to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, we may now Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is turned off, or we will not receive your signal. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one. If for any reason you need to remove yourself from the queue, you can do so by pressing star two. We will pause for a moment in order to assemble the queue. Our first question comes from Gabor Kemeny, Autonomous Research.
Oh, hi, thanks for the presentation. My first question is on loan growth, please. You, you expect loan growth to accelerate, I guess to 6%, including Russia, Ukraine? Can you talk a bit about the trend you see here, the dynamics in nations, across, across your markets? Then my second question is on the guide, including Russia and Ukraine, 11%. I mean, suggest that consensus is, is, is rather on the conservative side now, whereas if I look at the individual PNL line and what you got there, the only meaningful difference I see is on NII, where you are actually guiding EUR 200 million less than what consensus has. So perhaps can you help understand the discrepancy here? And the last topic would be the deal.
I mean, what likelihood do you see of finding further such transactions, which could potentially drive a meaningful reduction in your Russia exposures? And on the back of that, I guess, a broader question you might be able to touch on the point of how driven are you to actually proceed with a sale or spin-off if such alternatives are available? Thank you.
Thank you, Gabor. I think, yeah, this 5%-6% growth of loan growth, what it comes across the various markets. I think assuming that we some improvement in the market environment and on the one hand, and decreasing central bank rates on the other hand, I think this is an achievable number of what we should. Of course, we have, if we differentiate a little bit between the various markets, then some markets which have shown a strong growth rate in the past years will probably continue also in the coming year. But the point is, in the bigger markets, we would like to grow with markets or slightly, maybe 5%, in the Czech Republic, in Hungary, definitely lower than what we have had so far.
I think it's not a big differentiation, I would say, in the markets, and I can add little flavor to what you anyhow would see from the overall forecast. When talking about your second question, to the 11% RWA, I think some elements are relatively clear. Some, yeah, trading income with some volatility, but also some income from associates. And, yeah, we have figured in some income also from the STRABAG, you know, STRABAG has its own forecast profits, and with around the 25% stake, part of it will come as a dividend, in the last year, they always had around 2%, to be around then, slightly more than EUR 50 million.
But then, as we have equity participating, we also would consider fair share then. Yeah, so what is important to add is that we also we have changed our model to infection model to get an idea of potential litigation provisions, and we have now reached a high level. We rather than based on a model, rather on a gut feeling, we believe it's over provisioned and to be, because in this 11%, another EUR 340 million of litigation provisions included. So the third question, no material transition is currently shown. So here, I would be happy if we can close that one.
Given all that, I stick to what I shared times, that we work on ways try to consolidate the Russian activities, more like sale of, let's say, big enough portion so that we can consolidate, not totally off the card, but with significantly less probability at this point in time by a spin-off. Thank you for your questions.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question is by Simon Nellis with Citi.
Oh, hi. Thanks, thanks for the opportunity. I guess a slightly similar question to what Gabor asked, just on the 11% ROE out there, ex-Russia. I mean, how, how much confidence do you have on that? I mean, at the end of the third quarter, you had reiterated your 10% ROE guidance for ex-Russia. You delivered, you know, well below that, 7.6%. I'm just wondering, you know, maybe what drove the big changes in ROE in the fourth quarter, other than Polish provisions, and what are the risks that you miss on this guidance again? Thank you.
... For me, it's a fair guidance, it's a fair guidance. We had, if we compare Q4 with Q3, you know, we had some volatility in the overall valuation areas that this has some volatility on a quarterly basis, also in the future. And of course, if something very negative would happen in Poland, which is beyond what we see now, then maybe even the gut feeling of EUR 340 might not be enough. This year I cannot—I do not want to discuss, and I see your concerns, but this is the best what we can do.
We have assumptions on the tax and windfall taxes on the various countries which are well known, and these are figured in this 11%. Of course, again, I would not dispute that you always have in these years the risk of additional tax burdens, but all what we know is part of this 11%.
Okay, thanks. And then maybe just one more on the large increase in the NPE ratio at the group corporate and markets division. I don't know if you can elaborate a bit more. I think it is largely commercial real estate related. Is that, is that the case? I'd just be interested in knowing whether you think you'll be able to rebuild some of the provision coverage loss with the business cost guidance that you have, or, or, or you happen to take the provision coverage in that division?
Yes. No, no, I think I got your question. Yes, indeed. So we had, we had, and here we tried to flag it already in our Q3 call, that we would now see this, this, in piece, at the same time, you know, provision. I think as usual, we have been very mindful, and as I also tried to flag in the, in my introductory statement, we will do, of course, a decent workout strategy and not fire-selling any of these exposures. So part of the, of the provisions which were necessary today, we could potentially see them also, as a write back. This would be my assumption as of today.
But, you know, of course, as I said, usually I prefer having not being behind the curve whenever it comes to provisioning, rather than reporting to the market that we were capable to release the one provision here and there. And you're right, yes, the biggest part comes from this commercial real estate. Hopefully, this helps.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Lee Street with Citi.
Hello, good afternoon, and thank you for taking my questions. A couple for me, please. Firstly, the guidance for 50 basis points of cost of risk, including Russia and Belarus for 2024, is that something we should see as a more normalized run rate than, you know, 2024? And then secondly, obviously, it was a low year for cost of risk this year, and it's higher next year. How do we reconcile the higher cost of risk guidance next year with the, you know, the much better macro outlook? Should we just read into that you're expecting more, you know, single name, sort of, credit issues, shall we say? And then, on a separate pocket, as it relates to the Additional Tier 1, it looks like the economic to call the outstanding 8.659% one now.
Is that something you're looking at doing and replacing it with a new deal? How, how are you thinking? That'd be my two questions. Thank you very much.
Well, if I may start with the first two of them, Lee, thanks for raising them. And as I said, also in one of my introduction sentences, last year, we guided for around about EUR 800 million for the entire group, and we finished the year with around about EUR 400 million for the entire RBI group. At the same time, we having two markets in war, Ukraine, Russia, and therefore, I was so mindful when flagging last year. And I also thought that commercial real estate will kick in already a little bit earlier. That was the thought for 2023. The thought for 2024, yes, you're right, this 50 basis points, and this is important for me.
This is a cross number, so it does not conclude any use of overlays, just to be also precise when talking to you and communicating. So how are these 50 basis points are being derived? You could say about one third would be the usual run rate in the retail portfolio, and the other one, the other two thirds would come from the corporate part. Why then still using this normalized level, which is round about the through the cycle risk cost, is because we still believe that we could see some lagging defaults from the very pronounced interest rate increases. Usually, what we can see out of our model is that default is not immediately picking up when interest rates are increasing.
You have here a lagging effect between 12-18 months, and this was the main reason. At the same time, as I said, the portfolio performed extremely stable also in 2023. So this was our thought that we could see a certain delaying factor. Is it in the commercial real estate, or is it in some other sub-industries? And also, you know, if you look the macro numbers coming out of a recessionary environment, but if you look at the forward-looking indicators, like the PMIs, some of them still look very much challenged. And yes, indeed, maybe we also have been very much impacted by the geopolitical dynamics around. Thanks for the question.
To your third question, of course, we are monitoring the AT1 market, and it has become much more attractive lately. We are grateful to our investors in the 8.659% note and appreciate their patience. There's little more I can say today. Thank you.
All right. That's very helpful. Thank you, both.
Our next question comes from Ricardo Rovere with Mediobanca.
Thank you. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple of questions. Slide 18, and sorry, I had to miss the start. In your guidance, I imagine on NII, especially NII, actually, for RBI Core, I imagine the guidance is based on the rates that you show on slide 18, which for euro goes for a 50 basis point cut in 2024. Right or wrong, for forward curves today embed much more than that, than 50, only 50 basis points. The number I have in the back of my mind is actually 150 and then another 50 in 2025.
The question is whether the guidance is based, first of all, on this rate, and second, if forward curves and not this slide were correct, would you be in the position to give us an idea of what the sensitivity of NII in case rates fell more than the slides, the slide indicates?
Yeah. Of course, we use the forecast what we have shown here. So whatever we plan to decide, our own research is the core source. Of course, we read other forecasts as well, but whatever we state today is based on what we have. Overall, the reduction comes from a couple of countries. Of course, Hungary is the biggest one to mention. Our forecast would imply that we at least reduce by EUR 100 million-EUR 120 million NII coming from Hungary. When talking about euro, I think in the head office, one has to be clear that this is to a large extent based on or close to capital markets, as deposits are coming from your large corporates.
Yeah, some money is on accounts where we would lose a little bit from the reduction in rates. You have to consider that we also keep minimum reserves, where the change policy of remuneration has an impact on group level. And finally, we had issued quite a lot of bonds in recent years at higher cost, which what came last year fit in also. So sensitivity is less important on head office, one can say, and. And yeah, mainly in Slovakia, here one would consider that it has an impact, which in euro terms is, because Slovakia is, of course, euro and Croatia. These are also significant areas where adding all together might require another EUR 60 million for these two countries, Czechia , another EUR 10-15 million.
If you add up the various countries, this gives an indication why we believe it's, it's somewhere between EUR 4 billion and EUR 4.1 billion, as the loan growth will only come in the course of the year and not contributing too much. That's the current assumption. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.
We'll take our next question from Alan Webborn, with Société Générale.
Oh, hi, and thanks for taking my questions. Have you had any direct contact with the Russians over the Russian authorities over this scheme? I mean, you say that you've already this in, that you're waiting for approval. I think the not removing dividends for many companies that wanted to get out of the country was designed to keep the capital in the country, and this is a very clever way of getting around it. They work that out, and I just wonder how confident you are that it's just the law is different, but the effect is the same. So I just wondered how you feel about that.
I'm not denying it's a clever thing to do, but I'm interested because it has the same result as something that was frowned upon. That was the first question. The second one was: If you do achieve this, and you get the 125 basis points of extra capital, do you see it as excess capital? And if it is excess capital, what do you intend to do with it? Or is it not excess capital, and you feel it needs to be, you know, kept within the group to reflect the higher regulatory needs, et cetera, et cetera. So where are you on that? I guess sort of final question would be: Surely, you don't want to be a shareholder of Strabag for any particular length of time?
I mean, certainly, banking shareholders wouldn't want you to be. I mean, I understand that you need to, you know, have it on the books for, for some time, because otherwise it would just look as a way of getting cash out again. But, but seriously, is it not just a, you know, a short-term arc before you actually float that stake? Maybe you can't, you can't tell us anything about that at the moment, but it, it just doesn't seem logical, that that's the way that Raiffeisen would be going. Thank you.
Thank you. So starting with your first question, of course, also, it's not personal contact by me with the various Russian authorities. We have big teams working on this topic, and, and, yeah, we learned over the time how to read the messages, what we receive from the authorities, and based on the messages, what we have received, we, we are very confident that—So as of today, I'm very confident that the approvals from the Russian authorities are there or will be there. So, you know, usually it takes, it takes between the decision and the minute somewhat. Here we are, we are fairly confident. And, yeah, I, and, the, the idea was introduced to us to, to, to do such a transaction as a dividend in kind.
Yeah, the assumption of this, this broker, so however I should call it, seems to prove right that this gives an opportunity for an approval. I have to say that, other companies, banks, as well, has, got approval for dividends. So we did not go along that route till now, so. But overall, yeah, I strongly believe that we get the approvals, sure, and, and it will work. I have to say that we also need a couple of approvals in the European area, and here it will take some time, till we get it. Still, I'm confident that by still in Q1, I hope, and I'm confident, that we get the approvals. Other ways, we wouldn't have gone in this direction.
But I've probably, for Russia, this kind of transaction, which for people might less be a dividend than something like a share swap or equity asset swap or whatsoever. So there might be different views to look at these transactions. Let's put it that way. When talking about, hopefully, if it closes the 125 basis point excess capital, this is what we have at the beginning. Of course, over time, the RWA requirements on that topic will increase, and it will then be less favorable than it is now. So over time, the very attractive, 'cause I think on its own, if you look at the income potential and the RWA weight, then I think it's a very—could be or will be a very attractive investment for a while.
So there is no pressure to run out. And of course, divesting from such a big stake also needs another good idea, which I'm sure somewhere in the future we will find it, but we have no hurry to divest. So it probably will remain a while with us.
And I guess-
We are not incriminating ourselves, so we have no restrictions in selling. Put it that way.
Okay. No. Okay, good. Because, I mean, you know, in a way, we, we've focused on Russia for, you know, far too long. And yet prior to this issue, your strategy was to expand in core markets, and you'd made a good start on that. And I just wondered whether, you know, if you get this transaction sorted out, you feel that you will be able to go back to, you know, a strategy of growing your bank as opposed to fighting fires, which unfortunately you've had to do for the last couple of years. Do you feel that that could be, you know, your next move?
Yeah, right. I think what we will for sure do and also share with you, if we can, as soon as we can close the deal, and hopefully later at when we talk about the Q1 results, and if it then has closed and we have this 125 pips, how to reallocate that, yeah, I think we're overall observing, monitoring what the new benchmark for capital should be with other banks. Of course, we have seen that other banks have been successful in some share buybacks, but also we have some ideas in the core countries where we are in....
organically, but also inorganically, new, new opportunities might come, and you are well aware of our countries, which I repeat now, Czechia, to some extent, Slovakia, Romania for sure, Serbia, maybe Hungary we would like, but difficult.
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Hugo Cruz with KBW.
Hi, thank you very much. Two questions, please. First of all, on the high sensitivity to rate cuts, I just wanted to clarify. I think you mentioned EUR 60 million each on Slovakia and Croatia, and EUR 15 million on Czechia. Should we understand that, that, that's for a 100 basis points rate cut, or, or it's what's already reflected in your guidance?
Yes, that, that is the sensitivity for a 100 basis points rate cut, indeed.
Okay. Thank you. And then my other two questions were about the Polish FX issue and dividend policy. So on Poland, I mean, I understand you're assuming EUR 340 million in 2024. But you know, without talking about numbers, but timing, you know, when do you think we're gonna have clarity on this, you know, from either the government or the Polish courts? Or you know, do you think we could have that clarity around what the banks need to do anytime soon, or is it a continuation of what's been going on over the last few years? And then on dividends, you know, you now have a—if you do, you know, you're gonna do the 1.25 , so you know, it's been, you know.
What's the dividend policy now, assuming that Russia, you know, nothing else happens in Russia, can you continue to pay a dividend every year? Can you kind of firm up a dividend policy in that scenario, or are we still dependent on always kind of one-off approvals from the regulator? And if there's a dividend policy, you know, what are you aiming for right now? Thank you.
Yeah. Concerning your question about Poland, of course, we would love that either the government, or the parliament or the judges, the Supreme Court, will make a decision on the topics. And I think all the three would have it in their hand. And of course, I'm here a little bit biased, but if I just look at the thousands of litigations just in our portfolio, and then there are many more, so the courts are overburdened, and I think it's really a waste of energy for a country and creating uncertainty, so it's also not good for the development. So I'm hoping for, if you ask me with this recent change in government, if I have seen more activities? Unfortunately not.
So here we still hope that in the course of the first half year, that something might happen, but it didn't seem that's the top priority for the government or so. I think it would be very good. Yeah, it would also be good if the... 'cause we have seen some very, from my point, very well understandable decisions by a Supreme Court, but only in the small chamber with three judges, which addressed all the questions, which somehow also have been addressed earlier by the president, when there was the idea of have the full chamber of decisions. But again, if you ask me on the timeline, I cannot add clarity, but just my wishes.
When talking about your third question, which is the dividend, yeah, what we understand, of course, our shareholder base loves dividends, so this, this is what we have to, to clearly state, and we will do our best to continue and to have, a steady dividend policy. Yeah, I think, the lower the exposure to Russia is, the less exposed we are to, to supervisory thoughts. On the other hand, we are looking forward. I understand that, that the dividend policy is anyhow a topic on the European Central Bank, so from the, I should rather say, by the supervisors. And so we will learn, I would say, still in the first quarter of this year, in which direction they are heading.
Yeah, with all what we have achieved, I think we are less dependent on regulatory expectations and moving back to a steady dividend policy.
Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Marlene Eibensteiner with Deutsche Bank.
Hi, good afternoon, and thanks for taking the question. Maybe firstly, touching on deposits. Could you please touch a bit on the trends you're seeing also in terms of pass-through rates, competitive dynamics, but also deposit betas, and, also if you have expectations of mixed changes going forward? And secondly, maybe touching again on your commercial real estate exposure, would it be possible to get an update, also across the subsegments, maybe in terms of LTV developments and expected provisioning needs? Thanks.
Yeah. When talking about your dividend, sorry, deposits, deposits, expectations, I think what we can say is that This, in some countries where the rate hikes have been quite a while started ago and came to an end for a while. I think what we can say here is that this structural change from on accounts only to doing it also on the term deposits and saving deposits, this has to a large extent come to an end in many countries. In those who started who are later in the cycle, it's still going on. I think the competition from within various markets is I would say increasing, so we see reactions.
We only see the one or the other bank who is consistently aggressive and outbidding the others, but it's, it's not broad, but we definitely—the less liquidity is available in the market, so it depends on the markets, the more, the more this will come. Yeah, I think in most of, let's say in Central Europe, I would say for the time being, we have reached a level where, deposit rates will follow the mix of capital market rates and, and money markets, so central bank rates. In, in some countries like Hungary or in Southeast Europe, there was less, less transfer to, deposits and saving accounts, and more money left on the accounts, which have little to no interest.
So here, we will see when rates are coming down, we will also see a decrease in the net interest income. Hannes, maybe.
Thank you, Johann, for giving me the time to get this far-reaching questions being prepared. You have some details, Marlene, on the on our presentation when it comes to the distribution of the different subsegments on on page 31. But let me now also walk through in these metrics, and I will be very—I try to be at least focused and decent on what is our LTV. So if you look to all our different subsegments, is it office? Is it residential? Is it retail? is it hotels and so forth? We have over 93.3% of all our specialized lending credit commercial real estate exposure is an LTV below 80%. Below 80%, with actual value means collateral evaluation, 93 having an LTV below 80%.
But what is also very important is, you know, what is the debt yield, meaning what is your repayment capacity? And here we have, for only 5% of this portfolio, does have a debt yield below 5%. So I think that's, that's, very important to consider. So because you have to look at both angles, so what is the cash capacity of the respective project, and what is the valuation? So I repeat, 93.3 having an LTV of below 80%, and only 5% of our specialized lending exposure in the commercial real estate area do have a debt yield below 5%. The other thing is, of course, what is your occupancy ratio?
Here on the office part, we have an occupancy ratio close to 90%, and for retail and for warehouse, we have an occupancy of above 90%. And of course, you have seen that the investment volumes in the different subsegments, look at Germany, for instance, really have suffered very much in 2023. Hopefully, this helps for your guidance.
Yes, thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
We'll go next to Mehmet Sevim with J.P. Morgan.
Good afternoon. Just one clarification on the cost of risk guidance, please. You mentioned in your opening remarks that you can't exclude further provisions for the defaulted CRE portfolio. So can I just confirm whether this 50 basis points cost of risk guidance already accounts for this, or would that be an additional risk? And, maybe can you also tell us what level of coverage you now have on this portfolio? I do appreciate your optimistic views, but, you know, there's been a visible decline in your overall coverage now, so it would be good to understand if this is the new normal or, how we should see it in the coming quarters. And maybe just one more clarification, that would be the Czech tax expense this quarter, which jumped quite visibly.
Is that, anything related to windfall tax or anything like that? Thanks very much.
If I may start with the question, I think it goes very nice in line with the previous question: What is our loan-to-value and what is our debt yield? As I said, for a big part of the portfolio, we have a loan-to-value of below 80%, and in our internal commercial real estate guidance, in our risk cost guidance of the 50 basis points, of course, we have included whatever we may need also in addition for commercial real estate. If you ask me, as of today, maybe some 10, 15 basis points we may still need when talking about commercial real estate. And
... What is important, Mehmet, to consider is, you know, it's not just only the default. We could also see here and there, the one or other migration to stage two, but we could also see here and there, the one or other adjustment when it comes to the collateral received. So that was the reason why we are at 50 basis points and why I was flagging it for the guidance. But the commercial real estate, the risk cost guidance does include this potential further need what we have in the commercial real estate. But I think that's the most important one. Please, let's not talk about individual coverages on certain sub-portfolios on commercial real estate.
In total, we have, just to repeat, you know, we have, about EUR 400 million of provisions, risk provisions available, stage one, stage two for the commercial real estate. And please bear also in mind that we have securitized EUR 1.8 billion of the commercial real estate portfolio going back to the years of 2020, 2021, 2022. So this is also important when, when talking about our risk provisions. For the commercial real estate, we have still overlays available of EUR 82.6 million. Hopefully, this helps.
Yeah. Mehmet, to your other question, the impact on windfall taxes in Raiffeisenbank Czechia is EUR 26 million in 2023. There was in the chat the question, which it's difficult that I comment. The core shareholder, Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien, is in the process of increasing its participation to 25 plus one shares. And it was mentioned that this is an important threshold under corporate law in Austria. This I fully can confirm. For me, it simply means that they want to express their strong relation with RBI and their ongoing interest. But I... Because the question goes on, does this have any impact on the decision for Russia? And here, I haven't seen any impact from that decision to our strategy or anything else.
Thank you. We'll go next to Gabor Kemeny. Gabor Kemeny with Autonomous Research.
Oh, hi again. A small follow-up from me, please, on Polish FX. You mentioned the EUR 340 million assumed provisions for 2024. And now starting from a 92% total coverage, I guess this would get you to around 110% on the loans outstanding. So shall we read this as those who repaid their loans coming to sue you? And if that's the case, how did you pick the 110 number? Any color on that would be useful. Thanks.
Well, you're right, your assumption. So because, when we looked at the coverage on litigation provisions built, we were always looking at the current amount outstanding. But you could, of course, also have the one other who may feel inspired by this current ruling practice who already repaid.
Okay. Any comment on the magnitude of those who repaid coming to sue you?
Well, I think this was—this is included in the guidance received on the EUR 300, 300+ million. This was exactly when Johann says, "This is difficult.
We don't see it yet in the model and uptick. This was when we overrode the model with our guts and saying: "Well, hey, if also this part of the portfolio would come in addition, we might be forced to add another provision." And as it was also stated before, and I think it was Simon saying that, "Listen, for Q3, you gave as an outlook, this 10%, and we have seen in the last two years that on the stressed portfolio, we had to allocate substantial amount of litigation provisions." So that's the way of thinking, and that's the gut feeling within the model.
I see. Thanks.
But if I may add, I think we're at this point in time one can assume that or it would be rational that not too many rush into that, no? Because you start with a payout to your lawyer and nothing to compensate at the beginning. But we will learn about it in the course of this year.
Yeah, we'll have to see. Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you for all your questions. If you have any more, please remember to press star one on your telephone keypad to place your question. The mute function on your telephone needs to be turned off so we can get your signal. As there are no further questions at this time, we will now conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation.
Thank you. Thank you for all your questions, your comments, for your time. I wish you a good afternoon. Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.
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