Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q1 results 2026 conference call of Raiffeisen Bank International. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Johann Strobl, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us today for our first quarter update. Hannes and I are delighted to be joined by Kamila Makhmudova, our CFO and board member since January this year. This is a very exciting time for RBI. We are very fortunate to have her on board. Let me start with an overview of our key figures in the first quarter. I refer to slide four in our presentation. The operating result of the group, excluding Russia, came in at EUR 760 million, up 3.2% versus last quarter and up 12% versus the same period last year. This speaks to the strength of our core banking business, driven by decent loan demands, stable margins, and a strong fee business.
Consolidated profit stands at EUR 209 million, largely impacted by effects below the operating results. A large portion of the 2026 bank levies booked in the first quarter. We will not see the same effect in the coming quarters. Risk costs came at 36 basis points. Our guidance for 2026 is confirmed around these levels.
Provision in Poland in Q1 ran a bit above assumed yearly run rate. Nevertheless, our full-year guidance here is unchanged for now. We confirm our return on equity target for the group, excluding Russia, at around 10.5%, despite an optical low 5.2% this quarter. Finally, our CET1 ratio, assuming a full loss of the Russian equity, stands at 14.9%, reflecting decent loan growth in the quarter.
In recent weeks, we have announced two strategic transactions which have the potential to improve our market position in two key markets and which comfortably fit in our capital plan. Let's take a closer look at each of these. I'm turning to slide five and want to talk about Romania, the acquisition of Garanti in Romania. We announced at the end of March that we intend to acquire this bank in Romania and merge with our own business there.
The rationale is straightforward. We are very positive about the Romanian market, and our teams there have done remarkable jobs for many years, consistently delivering a market-leading return on equity. We have witnessed some consolidation in the market, and we clearly see the benefits of scaling up. With this transaction, we break into the top three or four in Romania and add over 200,000 new active customers.
The business case is also straightforward. Whereas the integration costs will largely be booked in 2027, the profit accretion will be visible as early as 2028 at around EUR 90 million and increasing thereafter. The impact on RBI CET1 ratio, excluding Russia, is around -60 basis points and will materialize in Q4 later this year. We believe that we are paying a reasonable price for a good asset, and which our teams in Romania will do an excellent job integrating it. My colleagues will update you on the progress in coming quarters. With that, let us now move to my next slide, six, Addiko. Let's take a closer look at the voluntary tender offer for Addiko, which we announced in early April.
First of all, I am pleased to announce that our offer is being reviewed by the Austrian Takeover Commission. We expect it to be made public at the latest on the 19th of May. We intend to acquire any and all Addiko shares for EUR 23.05, subject to achieving a minimum of more than 75% of shares outstanding.
We commissioned an independent valuation and o ur EUR 23 purchase offer represent a 20% premium over the intrinsic value determined by Ernst & Young on the basis of public available information. We also announced that we plan to enter into a transaction agreement with one of Addiko's shareholders, Alta Group, based in Serbia. Under the terms of this agreement, if the voluntary tender offer is successful, RBI is committed to selling four of Addiko's subsidiaries to Alta Group.
These are the banks in Serbia and Montenegro and two banks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For completeness, I should mention that this agreement does not require Alta Group to participating in the tender offer. It's only binding on RBI if the tender offer is successful. Alta Group owns just under 10% of Addiko directly and has entered into share purchase agreements covering another close to 20% or so.
Although these shares purchase agreements have not been completed. For the purpose of this transaction, it is our understanding that a total of 29.59 of Addiko shares are attributed to Alta Group. We appreciate that this tender and envisaged carve-out is uncommon, and I would like to spend a few words on the pricing mechanism, including in the carve-out.
This mechanism has been designed to ensure that all Addiko shareholders are treated equally. The carved price for the four non-EU banking subsidiaries will be floored at the level which reflects the same price to book multiple for which we are acquiring Addiko . We will also ensure that Addiko Bank obtains an independent and individual valuation of each of the four banking subsidiaries to be carved out.
The purchase price offered to either will be the higher of the two, the independent valuation or the pricing using the floored price book multiple. The applicable mechanism will be determined jointly for all the carved-out subsidiaries. If any of the four subsidiaries is sold and transferred at the independent valuation, an additional payment to Addiko shareholders who tendered their shares in the takeover offer will be made to compensate for the difference.
We believe that with this mechanism, all shareholders of Addiko will benefit equally from an increased fair market value of the carved-out subsidiaries. Let's now look at the rationale and impact on RBI. We have communicated an initial impact of around 45 basis points on the CET1 ratio excluding Russia. I should mention that this impact will depend on the opening balance valuation. This means that in the event of any fair value adjustments, the initial CET1 impact could be higher.
The final impact is expected to be much lower, however, following the carve-out of Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Viewed comprehensively and assuming a successful completion of the carve-out, this transaction would lead RBI to become the fourth largest bank in Croatia and re-enter Slovenia for a very modest 10 basis points impact on RBI CET1 ratio excluding Russia.
Similar to the acquisition in Romania, we expect the bulk of the integration cost to be booked in 2027 and visible profit accretion in 2028. In the coming days, we expect to sign the transaction agreements and to publish our voluntary tender offer. We also look forward in the coming days to engaging with Addiko shareholders.
We believe that our takeover offer comes with a rather high transaction certainty, and that for many stakeholders, our proposal provides a solution to longstanding problems. Once the offer is published, the acceptance periods last 10 weeks. By end of July, we should have a good idea if we are successful in achieving more than 75% participation. If we reach the minimum acceptance quota, the acceptance window will be extended by three months. In parallel, we will seek the necessary regulatory approvals.
According to this timeline, we expect settlement and closing in Q four this year. Let me stop here for now, and I'm sure you will have questions on these topics in a few minutes. Let's move to slide seven, Russia. We are making progress in reducing the business in Russia, and first of all, I think you might have noticed that we adjusted our reporting, and especially in the loans to customers. We now exclude loans to general government, which are in fact placements with the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency.
These are so-called C accounts and refer to coupons and dividends paid by Russian corporates and blocked for investors located in what the Russian authorities define as unfriendly countries. Raiffeisen Russia acts as a paying agent and receives the coupons and dividends from Russian corporate customers and is required to place these with the Russian Deposit Insurance Agency.
They are reported as loans to general governments and the loans to customers on the balance sheet. Since June 2024, these have increased from zero to almost EUR 2 billion today. The Type C accounts volumes are excluded from the rundown targets agreed with ECB. I believe that this adjustment reveals the true scale of rundown. Since the start of the war, our loan book is down 78% in ruble terms, and we now have less than EUR 2 billion, EUR 2.5 billion in euro terms loans remaining. More generally, all the restrictions which have been introduced to Russia will remain in place for the foreseeable future. I'm sure you will also ask for an update on our claim for damages against Rasperia. First of all, allow me to repeat what I told you last time.
We have not filed our claim yet, but we will absolutely do so at the time of our choosing. We continue to explore solutions which limit the risk of retaliation on our business and equity in Russia. Progress has been slow, but we believe it is our duty to explore all possibilities. If we now move to slide eight, the macro development, what you find here is that we have adjusted our forecast due to the geopolitical conflicts. With that, I would also move to slide nine, inflation and rates. You see here also some few adjustments. We believe that in the core of our regions, the non-euro countries, there is no rush to increase rates, but maybe rate decreases, will slow down a little bit.
We have built in a little rate hike from the ECB, maybe two steps of each 25. Let me now move to slide 10, our outlook. We confirm the 2026 outlook largely unchanged since last time. Of course, the CET1 ratio is adjusted as this reflects the two acquisitions which we plan to do. Kamila will discuss our CET outlook, CET1 outlook in more detail. With that, let me hand over to Kamila. Kamila, please.
Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to join you today, and I look forward to meeting many of you in person in the coming months. Let's run through the key P&L and balance sheet developments this quarter, starting with the overview slide on slide number 12. Loans to customers are up around 3.5% in the quarter, driven by encouraging trends across most of our markets and in line with a good momentum which we experienced in the second half of the last year. Net interest income up 2% quarter-on-quarter, whereas fee income was down 2%. On fees, there is always an element of seasonality in Q1. When comparing to the same period last year, we see an improvement of more than 11%, and we expect another decent increase this year.
OpEx were stable quarter-on-quarter in most of our markets, except for Austria. In Q1, head office suffered from a base effect in Q4 last year, which included few positive effects in Q4. There is also a small one-off from the higher deferred bonus provisions. More importantly, we can confirm our guidance for FY 2026 OpEx at around EUR 3.6 billion, slightly above 5% year-on-year increase, an improvement of cost-income ratio to around 52.5%. Let's take a closer look at each of these, starting with NII on slide 13. As mentioned, NII is up 2% on the quarter, driven by further balance sheet growth in the core markets. Rates and margins remain broadly stable.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we should expect less headwinds from the coming key rates, with perhaps an exception in Hungary. More encouragingly, the rate development has changed noticeably since the beginning of March. Curves have steepened, which means that we will be rolling our model books into a better rate, and we might even see some rate hikes, which were not expected earlier this year. For now, we have chosen to keep our NII guidance unchanged at around EUR 4.4 billion, excluding Russia, with an upside between EUR 50 million-EUR 100 million, depending on how rates, volumes, as well as customer behavior will develop. Moving to the fee and commission income.
As I mentioned, we saw a 2% decrease in the quarter, but 11.4% increase over the Q1 last year. I'm happy to report that the increase is broad-based, coming from all key products across all markets. Also here, we confirm our guidance of EUR 2.1 billion. Moving to the balance sheet. The loan growth, specifically, the good trends which we observed at the end of last year continued first quarter with 3.5% growth in the quarter. Loan portfolio is now 9% larger than at this point last year. In retail, we see 2% growth in the quarter, with very good trends in consumer loans in all of our markets. Personal and consumer loans are up 16% compared to the March last year.
In the first quarter, new business was particularly strong in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania. In mortgages, we see 7% growth year-on-year. While new business generation Q1 was a little bit slower than in Q4, it remains to be substantially higher than in all of the previous quarters last year. Here, I would like to highlight the Czech Republic, where Q1 origination is up 15% versus Q4. The corporate book is up 2% in the quarter and 8% year-on-year, with all products contributing very nicely. In Austria, I should flag that a large portion of the reported loan growth is coming from repos and other short-term non-strategic business. In the core of the business, the actual growth is closer to 1%. Focusing on countries, clearly, the Czech Republic stands out with 2.7% growth.
If you consider the weaker Czech koruna in the quarter, loan growth is actually closer to 4%. Likewise, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary grew at similar rates. Looking to the remainder of 2026, our loan growth guidance is confirmed at 7%, and this excludes any of the announced acquisitions. Some of the short-term business will revert, and we will sense that the torrid growth rates in retail might ease up a little bit. Finally, the macro uncertainty cannot be ignored. On our macro outlook slide, you see that we have revised GDP for 2026, and we cannot exclude that this might feed through to our corporate loan demand. Let's briefly jump to the slide 16 and take a look at the deposits from customers, which continue to tick up nicely into the quarter.
Included is the 5%, which you see here. In this 5%, we have some effects from repo and short-term activities, especially in head office in Czech Republic. More relevant, however, is retail deposits, which are between 1%-2% up in all of our markets. Considering how much these have contributed to our margin and NII improvements, we are encouraged to see this trend continue. With that, let's now take a look at the CET1. Slide 17. We can report a core CET1 ratio excluding Russia at just inside 15%. As reported last time, there was a change in the Russian operational risk treatment on January 1st, with the impact of 29 basis points. From starting point of 15.2, the development in the quarter is largely coming from the loan growth and the dividend accrual.
Moving to my next slide and the assumptions for the worst case scenario in Russia. At this point, you're very familiar with the approach, and there is little for me to add. However, I would like to add in one point, circling back to the Russian OpRisk, which I just mentioned. In Russia worst case scenario, we do not assume any immediate relief from the OpRisk cover coming from our Russian business. This is very conservative assumption and has an impact of 114 basis points. To put it differently, if we were to lose our Russian bank and obtain relief from the OpRisk, our CET1 ratio would be 114 basis points higher than shown here. On my next slide, I'll spend a few minutes on our CET1 ratio going forward.
On the left-hand side, this is how we think about the capital generation. Largely driven by earnings in the next nine months, as well as some balance sheet optimization, including further securitization. On the right-hand side is how we think about capital allocation. Portfolio development is largely driven by loan growth, but also includes possible rating migration. We have, of course, included two acquisitions, which we are targeting for the later this year.
As Johann mentioned, there remains to be some uncertainty as to initial capital impact of the Addiko takeover, subject to the opening balance valuation. For 2026, despite strong loan growth in M&A, we continue to assume a payout ratio of 40%, equal to roughly EUR 1.8 per share. This is what we accrue in our CET1 ratio in Q1 through Q3. You need to review in Q4.
More generally, at 14.3, we will dip slightly below our medium-term target of 14.5. Clearly, we intend to revert back to 14.5 in the following quarters. Solid capital buffers have been built up over the years, and I believe that the current opportunities warrants the expense. Some of you might know that I spent a large portion of my career in mergers and acquisitions, leading RBI corporate development. Building on this experience, I'm a firm believer in the merits of organic growth. I will be the first one to say that acquisitions needs to be opportunistic, always with a very careful eye on the valuation. Capital allocation will be one of the my highest priorities as CFO, and you can count on me to pay very close attention on how we deploy it.
There are no changes in our capital requirements shown on slide 20, and I will skip ahead to slide 21, MREL and funding plan. Starting with the MREL resolution group Austria. From January, a subordination requirement has been added, now at a level of 26.69% of the TREA. This subordination requirement will not materially change our funding plan. First of all, we currently run a comfortable buffer with eligible subordinated liabilities of 32.78%. Furthermore, our stock of our capital instruments, CET1, AT1, and Tier 2, largely satisfy the subordination requirements. Structurally, this means that we no longer that we will only require modest amounts of senior non-preferred. Moving to funding plan. It has been a busy start of the year, both in Vienna and in subsidiary level.
Looking ahead for the rest of the year, out of the head office, we are looking for a possible two Tier 2 ahead of the next year maturity and a after summer possible Senior Preferred depending on the loan growth. In Slovakia, Tatra banka will look to issue Senior Preferred for MREL purposes in the coming months and the covered bonds in after the summer. In Romania, scheduled maturities as well as acquisition of Garanti Bank will drive issuance domestically and probably in euro benchmark format also after the summer. Moving to the final slide and the legacy portfolio in Poland. In the first quarter, we booked EUR 77 million of provisions. This is in part driven by temporary effects, which are expected to reverse later in the year.
There is also an element of volatility as the model reflects changes in effects and Polish interest rates, which are used for discounting. This means that the provisions through the income statement will not be linear every quarter. In Swiss franc, the trend of new litigation cases is very much in line with the downward assumptions in our model, both for active and prepaid loans. In Europe, we do not have the same propensity model, and we base our provisions on the observed inflows. These have ticked up slightly, but we are still within the range of our expectations. Accordingly, our guidance for 2026 is unchanged at about EUR 200 million. This is what we have booked into ROE targets. With that being said, we have been rolling out a range of settlement offers across the portfolio, including in Europe.
In the coming months, we will see to what extent it is possible to accelerate the resolution of this legacy portfolio. If we find it cost effective and legally sound ways to bring forward an end to this issue, we certainly will consider that. I would like now to hand over to Hannes for the risk report. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Kamila. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your interest this afternoon. There are two topics which I would like to update you on today. The first, of course, is the geopolitics environment and how we think about this in our portfolio. The second is a brief walkthrough of our provisioning in the first quarter, which is illustrated on slide 25. Let's start with how the events in the Middle East over the past two months have impacted our portfolio. Direct exposure is negligible and no direct impact or risk costs to report. More generally, we are looking at second-round effects, including high oil and gas prices, maybe even shortages. The affected industries are the ones you might have expected. Oil and gas traders, construction materials and mining, chemicals, automotives and so on.
We have reviewed 500 individual customer across these industries and updated credit ratings where required. The impact so far is very limited. We have downgraded a handful of customers for a net exposure of just around EUR 500 million. A slightly larger list of customers have been put on a watchlist, still only representing around EUR 800 million of exposure at default. To be clear, we are talking about a watchlist for a potential rating review and not insolvency or even Stage 2 shifts. For over 90% of our exposure in the affected industries, there is no action needed, and we do not expect rating downgrades from today's perspective. This is due to a combination of factors. Supply chains are decently diversified. Cost passthrough is largely expected. Finally, we see very good hedging policies on individual customer levels.
Clearly, this is encouraging. The bigger question is how long this will last and how high energy prices can go if the Strait of Hormuz remains all but shut. To this effect, we have also conducted an internal stress test where oil trades far above current level with the expected severe follow-on inflation and GDP drop. Clearly, the result would be harsh, but still better than the impact we reported in last year's EBA stress tests, and where we ranked in the top-tier among European banks. Overall demonstrating the robustness of our portfolio against further adverse developments. In light of all these uncertainties, risk cost guidance remains unchanged at around 35 basis points. Still on this page, you will see that our stock of overlays is largely unchanged at around EUR 400 million for the core of the group, excluding Russia.
Let's now take a look at the risk cost in Q1, turning to slide 25. Starting with the first column, where we show net releases in Stage 1 and 2. These needs to be looked at in conjunction with Stage 3 risk costs. If we were doing our job correctly, by the time a customer reaches Stage 3, there should already be a decent amount of Stage 1 and Stage 2 provisions booked. The shift to Stage 3 leads to a release of these Stage 1 and 2 provisions and new provisions in Stage 3. This is to a large extent what happened here. I could also mention some relief from securitization just for the sake of completeness. At the same time, Stage 3 risk costs of EUR 62 million are about evenly split between retail and non-retail, with the non-retail defaults coming from the GC&M segment.
The biggest swing is coming from the macro model update, with allocations of EUR 74 million, excluding Russia. You saw at the beginning the provision to softer GDP inflation forecast across all our key countries. These same trends are captured in our macro model and led to increased provisions in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Czech Republic. On the positive side, if the upswing in 2027 is confirmed, some of these provisions could only be temporary. Ladies and gentlemen, before opening the floor for questions, I would like to thank our CEO, Dr. Johann Strobl, for the many years presenting, sharing and explaining the deep insight to the financial performance and dynamics of our RBI group. Johann, thank you very much. We all learn so much from the way you share your way of thinking. Now to you all, we are ready to take your questions.
Ladies and-
Thank you, Hannes. This comes unexpected. Moderator, please give us the questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we may now start the Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question today, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that the mute function on your telephone is turned off, or we will not receive your signal. If you want to withdraw your question, please press star one and one. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, you will need to dial star one and one. We will pause for a moment to allow a queue to assemble. Thank you. We will now start with our first question, and this is from Benoit Pétrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody, thank you, Johann, for your very strong insight, and all the best, obviously. Just a few questions on my side. The first one will be actually on the net interest margin, which remains very stable actually in the quarter. I was wondering if you could comment maybe on whether that's a trend you expect to continue into the coming quarters, so roughly stable net interest margin. I was wondering if you could also comment on, you know, potentially, competitive pressure you do expect in the coming months. Some competitors talked about bit of pressure on liability margin in some countries.
Yeah, I was wondering if you've seen the same trend. The second question is on loan growth. Very strong loan growth in the first quarter at +3% quarter-on-quarter. You know, when you look at the macro developments, do you expect your loan growth momentum to remain positive? Are you still comfortable with the 7% loan growth target for the full year? That's number two. Number three is actually on the fees, because you've got a very strong start of the year on the fees. You've not upgraded the guidance, if we analyze Q1, it seems that your fee guidance is actually quite conservative.
I was wondering if you expect something negative on the fee side at some point this year or just a bit of conservatism you prefer to put on your side at the beginning of the year? Those are my questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you. First, let's come back to NIM. Yes, we do expect the NIM to remain largely stable at 2.3% for 2026. There might be small fluctuation in one or the other market, but overall, nothing material that would move any needle for the entire group. When you're talking about the competitiveness and what we observe in various countries, I think it's worth mentioning three countries. First of all, Romania. We observe some pressure on the asset side from the competition, which led to a lower average margin across credit products, most personal loans and specialized finance. In addition, we had MREL issuance in Q1, which also waited on NIM. On the other hand side, Q1, we have a lower number of days, which also adds into a bit lower performance.
In Czech Republic, this is a traditionally very competitive market, and we successfully attracted new deposits in the last few quarters to attract new customers, thereby accepting some pressure on the liability margin, yes. Overall, we do, however, not expect that this will have a very meaningful impact over 2026, and we see that the NIM will only slightly be lower compared to 2025. The last country to mention is Croatia. Quarter-on-quarter decrease, yeah, was driven by a repricing of the, on the liability side. Overall, we also do not see a broader trend here. We expect that NIM is relatively stable. Loan growth, your second question. On the loan growth, indeed, we show quite a good development Q1, + 3% quarter-on-quarter.
As I mentioned, that there is a lot of short-term repo transactions, at about EUR 1.2 billion. If we adjust for these terms, loan growth was about 1.7%. It's still a positive development, both in head office and in the network. Taking this into account, we feel comfortable with the guidance of 7% for this year on the loan growth. When it comes to fee and commission income, I think it's to a certain extent a level of conservative. We confirm the guidance of 6% growth. Indeed, we've seen in the first quarter year-on-year growth 11%.
We see some upside. Assuming a similar trend, like in 2025, the Q2 and Q4 average fee and commission income is usually higher by 9%-10% versus Q1. This is equivalent of the run rate of EUR 550 million per quarter. This would bring maybe additional EUR 30 million-EUR 35 million upside.
Thank you very much. Very useful.
Thank you. We will now move to our next question. This is from Mate Nemes from UBS. Please go ahead. Mate Nemes, UBS, your line is open. Please go ahead. Checking if UBS has the line muted. We can't hear you. We will proceed with our next question. Please stand by. Next question is from Ben Maher from KBW. Please go ahead.
Hi. I've got three questions, please. The 1st one's just on the risk costs in the first quarter. I think in the additional information, prior to the results, you've got into EUR 39 million in Stage 1, Stage 2 provisions, largely coming from the macro updates. You obviously booked EUR 74 million. I'm not sure about the like, the like figures to compare against, but just interested why what was the, like the reason behind the larger figure? Second question is just on the deposit competition in Czechia. We saw a very good growth Q and Q, but several of your competitors have flagged worsening deposit competition. Just interested in your thoughts on how you think that market is behaving. My final question is just on Russia.
This still accounts for a large share of the headline P&L, it comes up, you know, just under half of the PBT for the headline group. Again, just interested in how you see that evolving for the remainder of this year and into 2027. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Let me start, Ben, with the risk costs in our guidance for the full year. If we look at our macro models, as shared also with this audience more than once, the biggest relevant, statistically relevant, factor is the GDP growth or long-term bond rates. For retail also, of course, it's really vital to have a view on the unemployment rate. These three is what is driving our macro dynamics. This you could say we put the new updated numbers into our model and then we came to this EUR 74 million. What you can see is on page page, Johann was talking about our updated macro parameters.
The countries which are most affected by this update is Hungary. When allocating this macro really is Hungary with EUR 30 million, is Slovakia and Romania with round about EUR 10 million each. In our regular quarterly reporting, you would also see somewhere around page 60 some further details on how we think about these macro models are in impact. Thanks for the question, Ben.
I will comment on the Czech deposit competition. Indeed in the market we see a very competitive environment and especially in Czech Republic, which stands out comparing to any other markets in our jurisdiction. In Czech Republic, we feel that we are in generally benefiting from the current process, and we are gaining market share. We are currently paying a very competitive rate, but with a number of conditions attached.
We usually ask for number of payments to be made or a volume of the investment that to be made. Also, we have to highlight the excellent mobile banking offering that is making a difference comparing to our competitors. We also see a very encouraging cross-selling trends. We're paying higher rates converting to the products like turnover and current accounts and consumer loans and even mortgages. Thank you.
Yeah. I take the Your third question, which is the contribution to the overall group profits from our bank in Russia. Yeah, I could explain that we have, you've seen it in the presentation, a dual steering approach, which clearly shows the development of the bank, of course, also the contribution. But what you see is that focusing mainly or almost all on the core, you see that in the overall relevance, the numbers are of less importance. Of course, you also see that it is consistently reduced over time. This, in combination with probably lower interest rates, will reduce the contribution overall. Finally, there is the specifics, the seasonality of the first quarter in the core groups.
Unfortunately, we have so many bank taxes which to a large extent have to be paid in the first quarter. As I said, this will not repeat itself in the coming quarters. Again, the relative part will change significantly. Thank you for your questions.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our next question. This is from Gabor Kemeny from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.
Oh, hello. Thank you for me, to Johann as well for all your contributions, and a pleasure to be talking to you, Kamila, as well. My first question will be on M&A, and it is interesting to see Raiffeisen's franchise evolving with the proposed acquisitions. On Addiko in particular, how confident are you that the standard offer will be successful just in light of another counter bid being made for the same bank? My other question would be on your profitability, where I believe you commented that Q1 was depressed for a few reasons. I think even if we adjust for this kind of upfronting, you were at around an 8% core return on equity.
If you could just walk us through the drivers of how you are planning to get to the 10.5% target for the full year, please. Just coming back to Hannes' comments on the sensitivity to higher energy prices. I believe the EBA stress test may have assumed a, you know, a significant capital impact from a harsh macro scenario. Just if we think about your core provisionings, how do you think it could evolve at these current energy prices? Any flavor on that would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you, Gabor. I start with your first question about Addiko. We cannot comment on the offers by the other competitor. We haven't seen it. We just have read about it, their announcement, which is of less detail than what we have. What we know is that we believe strongly that we can offer very high transaction certainty.
This is, I think, important for all of the shareholders as we had quite difficult situation for the shareholders in recent months. I also explained that one of the core shareholders, Alta Group, is not obliged to tender into our offer. On the other hand, we know that last time he did not tender in the offer what was proposed at that time. Yeah, we have an agreement if our offer is successful, then there would be further transactions, in which he obviously is interested in.
On the second question on bridging the ROE. First of all, we see a higher quarterly run rates for both net interest income and fee and commission income. First quarter is always the shortest, and the impact from the number of days adjustment leads to a quarterly NII rate closer to EUR 1.09 billion, excluding positive impact from the loan growth in Q2, Q4, which will come on top.
I've already mentioned that we have a stable margin at 2.3% and the growth for the year expected of 7%. Secondly, average fee and commission income in Q2, Q4 is usually higher by 9%-10% versus the Q1, and that leads to a quarterly run rate of approximately EUR 550 million per quarter in Q2, Q4.
Finally, I think we need to bear in mind the impact of the average equity when it comes to ROE. In Q1, the underlying average equity is at around EUR 13.8 billion, not reflecting the payout, dividend payout, which occurs in April. For the year, financial year 2026, estimation, the ROE and the calculation would be based on the underlying average equity at around EUR 13.4 billion. That's how we bridge it. I hope that answers the question.
Gabor, let me take the third question when it comes to the activity of higher energy prices. As already indicated, with regards to the question from Ben, you know, we have in our macro models the GDP growth, long-term bond rates, and for retail portfolios, we also consider, of course, the unemployment rates. If you would look at the function, you would see that the highest weight is on the GDP perception. We look in our sensitivities, and you also can see them on page 66 in our quarterly report towards three scenarios.
We give the biggest weight to the, you could say the going concern to the base case scenario, we give 25% weight to the pessimistic case and 25% to the optimistic case. If in this distribution, we would see a complete reversion of the current situation and confirming again this positive GDP outlook, in which we have started towards this year, we would see a release of provisions of around about EUR 70 million. If the pessimistic scenarios would turn out, which means the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, oil price stays at elevated level, GDP going down, rates going even further up, inflation pressure is here to stay, we would have to use another EUR 135 million in addition.
This is all what you can anyway find in our reporting asset, starting onwards from page 66. Just one thing, what is for me very clear, you know, if really this negative scenario would turn out of this additional EUR 135 million, it's more than fair to assume that in this case also, we would use part of our management overlays to give you a complete picture. Thank you, Gabor, for your question.
Very useful. Thank you.
Thank you. We'll now take the next question. This is from Mate Nemes from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon. Can you hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you.
Excellent. Apologies for the audio issues. First of all, I would like to say thank you to Johann as well, for his insights, and kind help over the years. My first question actually would be to you. You and your team managed RBI through a very challenging last four years and put the company back on a profitable growth path, backed up by solid asset quality and a firm capital position. With this call being your last one, and without the inevitable responsible for delivery past analysts chasing you, what are the key opportunities that you see for the group in the next five years in broad terms? What would you be the most excited about when it comes to RBI? That's the first question.
The second question would be a question for Kamila, and I am looking forward to working with you. I was wondering if you could share some color on the rollout of in-court settlement strategy for the FX unlimited mortgage loans in Poland. What does this mean for your provisioning approach? You, I think, alluded to the fact that it might be a bit more volatile, but if you could elaborate a little bit on the details, that would be helpful. Thank you.
Speaker's just checking if you have the line on mute.
I start again. Can you hear me? Give me, operator, please give me a feedback if you can hear me.
We hear you loud and clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Mate, thank you very much for your kind words. maybe I cannot repeat now my many thanks. There will be another opportunity. I like to work with all of you. Coming to your question, I think you see in the numbers, but I would now take quite a long period of time to talk. I think the bank is in a very good shape, and I'm not talking about the financials, but the skills which had been developed over the last couple of years, which you have seen in a fantastic organic growth. I think the group is also very good in integrating whenever there, as Kamila said, good opportunistic targets.
I'm pretty sure that we are in the right region for this good business, and I think we have a new fantastic management. I think they will soon explain to all of you how the next couple of years will be, but I tell you, the potential is really huge. Kamila.
Thank you. I would address. Do you hear me? Just to check. Yes. Okay. To address the second question on the rollout of the settlement in Poland. We are now targeting a much more broadly, both in Swiss franc, but also in euros. We, of course, attempt to settle with those borrowers who are already in court, but we increasingly having a programs to target the borrowers before they file in court. As soon as we have some indication that they are intending to file, we approach them with a attractive offer. If successful, this could bring forward some provisions from next year into this year, but it's too early to say. For now, we maintain the guidance at EUR 200 million for 2026. Hope that answers the question.
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. This is from Krishnendra Dubey from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi. Thanks for taking question. Hope you can hear me well.
Yes, we can hear you.
Hey, thanks, Johann, for bearing with us on long Russia questions on the calls, thanks for guiding us through this time. I have three questions. Just starting first on the GC&M. I guess the NIM, the NIM margin in the business seems to be very volatile. If you can comment on how should we think about the NIM margin for GC&M business, also, the fee growth in the GC&M business is very strong this quarter, and is it partly due to the, to the off late, like you have done few collaborations, have kind of got few joint ventures. Are those kind of bearing fruits for you in GC&M? Second is on the NIM overall.
I guess you talked about pressure points in Czech Republic with your liability margin in Romania on the asset side. Could you talk us through what are the positives which you are seeing for the NIM margin for the rest of the year? Lastly, third, just on the Rasperia claim. I know you haven't filed the claim. Then thanks and welcome, Kamila, and thanks a lot for talking about 40% payout ratio. I guess narrowing the range now for us to do the work. In a sense, if you get If hypothetically, if the claim comes true, how would you be trying to allocate the claim money? Should we take 40% as a base for a dividend payout?
Let me first comment on the NIM in GC&M segment. On an eye site, the liability margin is under pressure in Q1, and we could not fully compensate by volume increases, and therefore we see slight NII decrease in Q1, sorry, at minus EUR 4 million. In addition, interest-bearing assets include a high proportion of low margin business, repo business. As this is a short-term business, it can lead to some swings in NIM. Just for your information, we have reported a 3% increase in the volumes. However, As I mentioned already, the core business increase is actually at 1.7%, and the rest was rather a short-term repo business at a very low margin.
This repo business is EUR 1.2 billion, as I mentioned. On the full year basis, given that everything we know as of today, we expect that there would be no significant drop compared to year 2025. When it comes to your second question on the fees, the increase mainly comes from the strong debt capital market business, institutional clients and sovereign issuances, which are up EUR 12 million quarter-on-quarter. Secondly, we saw a positive development in corporate lending, primarily structured finance and the asset manager, in Austria, so a rise in capital management. It's primarily driven by average fund volumes that increase.
When it comes to year on year, in addition to the mentioned drivers on the Q- on- Q development, we saw higher volumes from the banknote business on the back of the increased volumes, growth in custody, and increased transaction volumes. Generally, increased client activity in payment business as well.
NIM, generally, what positive you see for the rest of the year? I have mentioned that on the NIM side, we are stable relatively. Here we guide you through the NII of EUR 4.4 billion. I don't see that there is a lot of NIM positivity, but NII generally will be supported by a key rates increase that we expect. I mentioned already in my speech the sensitivity of the NII upside of EUR 50 million-EUR 100 million. Rasperia claim, I would give a floor to.
That's nice. That's very kind. Unfortunately, I have to say I do not expect that we see the money in my term as CEO, unfortunately. I think you can trust that the management team has a very, a very strong understanding of shareholder wishes of decent capital allocation, and they have all the tools in their boxes. I trust the team fully. In the future, this I dare to say I would also enjoy good dividends, no? This is up to the management. 40% dividend payout ratio is answered by Kamila, but it sounds good, no?
Yes. We have confirmed a payout ratio for estimation for 2026 at 40%, which is roughly EUR 1.8 per share. This is what we accrue in Q1 and to Q3, and in Q4, we will review based on the development. Thank you.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. We will now move to our next question. This is from Simon Nellis from Citibank. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks very much for the opportunity. Maybe two last remaining questions from me would be, can you outline what the drivers of the higher tax rate in the quarter, if there's anything else other than Ukraine? What's your expectation for the effective tax rate going forward? That'd be my first question. I saw that it's very high fee income growth at the GC&M division. Just wondering, having that, and is that sustainable? NIM contraction at GC&M was also quite pronounced. If you could also comment on that and what the outlook going forward is for NIM in that division. Thank you.
Okay. First, let me comment on the higher tax rate. Higher tax rate is mainly due to the increased tax rate in Ukraine, which is up 50% from the 25% last year. This replaces the windfall tax, which was previously charged in the fourth quarter. Additionally, we have a bank levy in Slovakia, which is booked as a in the income tax line. Overall, we currently expect that the effective tax rate a bit lower than 25% for the full year 2026. There would be a realization after for the entire year. How sustainable are GC&M fees? Currently, we see them as sustainable going forward, in line with the 2025.
As I've mentioned, Q1 has increased interest-bearing assets due to a short-term business repo transactions, which are very low margin, and therefore there is a pronounced difference in Q1. We see that through the year, the GC&M fee, Oh, sorry. I was about interest and income. I mean, so on the GC&M fees, therefore, GC&M fees were caused by the business in primarily in DCM and as well as Eva mentioned in the asset manager. Here, there would be a certain volatility to the extent, I mean, to promise similar development throughout the year, you know, that we see in Q1 probably difficult, but we are very optimistic on a further positive development going forward.
When commenting on the third question is a drop in NIM. This is what I started to answer. Here is primarily driven by the short-term business that we see in Q1, which are the repo transactions. The NIM contraction generally driven by lower NII in the quarter. NII is down by EUR 3 million quarter-on-quarter due to slightly lower liability margin. It's dilution from the high proportion of low margin repo business. Yeah. At the same time, average interest bearing assets were up, and this resulted to a relatively low NIM.
Clear. All the best, Mr. Strobl.
Thank you.
Thank you, Simon. Thank you.
Next question today comes from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Thanks for taking my questions. Again, I just want to join greetings to Mr. Strobl for having accompanied us throughout all these years and in all this complicated situation. Maybe for him the first question, maybe it's my fault, but I haven't read anything in particular recently, at least, with regard to the possible unfreezing of Russian assets in Europe. Do you think that the change in the government in Hungary could eventually change and maybe speed up and this could eventually be a positive for you? Just I just want to know your opinion on this. Second question I have is for Kamila, I would say. Just on the 14.5% that in your slide you indicate as a medium-term target.
When you say medium term, is what you have in mind, this is the appropriate level of capital that RBI ex Russia should have as a sort of target, or is where you think the capital will land after Romania and eventually Addiko, after the conclusion of all the transactions? If it is the first one, why 14.5%? Why not 14% or 15% or 13.5%? I have a question for Hannes. This quarter, if I understand it correctly, you charged the EUR 74 million, if I'm not mistaken, related to the macro update of the models. This is an exercise that is not per se, and Hannes, correct me if I'm wrong, a one-off.
Maybe EUR 74 million in a quarter is a one-off, not per by nature, but maybe by magnitude. Your guidance is unchanged at 30 basis points-35 basis points. This quarter you charged around 36, if I remember correctly. Implicitly, it's like you're saying that you expect some underlying deterioration of asset quality throughout the rest of the year. Maybe a final question, if I may, still related to capital somehow. One day Russia should not be part of the group anymore, is already considered not be part of the group anymore. Still represent a fairly large amount of the profit of RBI. It's not immaterial at all. Are you planning to use the capital to replace Russia with other transactions, which basically means buying earnings?
I was a bit surprised, honestly, to see two transactions, one after the other, in such a short period of time. Just to have an idea if that could be eventually a way of using your capital. Thank you.
Riccardo, thank you for your questions. I mean, unfortunately, we have not been successful to convince the European governments that it would be in the interest of Europe to unfreeze the Sberbank shares. It's an interesting dynamic, which always occurs when a new sanction package is under negotiation. De-freezing would be a very, very clean way forward. Bringing Rasperia in Austria to the court is, and I have explained this many times, creates some risks for us in Russia. We will not be able to now to fully solve this or reduce this risk, but we are working on that as well.
I mean, the change in the government in Hungary, I think we assume it will now create a flow of EU funds which had been blocked. Time is difficult, but definitely this could be beneficial to the Hungarian economy, to Russia itself. I haven't thought. I find your way of thinking interesting. I have to admit, I haven't thought and would not immediately expect something from this side. With this, I would hand over to Kamila.
Thank you, Riccardo, for your question. We believe that a 14.5% is a prudent level to which we run the bank, excluding Russia. This is almost 250 basis points above our SREP requirements, and we expect to be back on this level in the course of 2027. We will dip, as we've mentioned, to 14.3% at the end of 2026. We will be building it up back to 14.5% throughout the year. Hannes, your risk question?
Yes, thank you very much, Kamila. Riccardo, on the risk side, what is very important. Let me distinct between the macro part of the provisioning and the overlay. The macro, as I explained beforehand, goes very nicely, you know, with GDP, with long-term rates and with unemployment when considering the retail models. The overlays is where we accept that our current risk models do not completely comprise current situation. An example which I had to give, unfortunately, more than once in this setting is, for instance, a war situation like, you know, Ukraine. No model is out there who can deal with wars and has it in the database memory, so to say. That's the reason.
If I look at the EUR 103 million, what we have printed in the Q1, and we deduct the overlays of the EUR 74 million, I was talking about the shift from Stage 1, Stage 2 to Stage 3. Releasing Stage 1, Stage 2, because this was a company where we already have booked Stage 2 provisions. Company defaulted, therefore we released it in Stage 1, Stage 2, and we had to build up a comparable number for the Stage 3. I was also talking about that the total Stage 3 risk costs that we could split them up for about 50/50, into retail, non-retail, you know, the EUR 62 million.
You know, the retail part, you could almost assume that for a full year, we have somewhere around risk cost for retail, for the retail portfolio, somewhere around EUR 180 million-EUR 220 million. This is what you have to assume. The remaining part, summing up to the part of the corporate side. I would not yet dare to speak about a deterioration, as you indicated, because in the end of the day, if I take from the 103 total risk costs, I deduct the macro overlays of EUR 74 million, I know I should then also consider Stage 1, Stage 2. We have this EUR 29 million of additional risk costs, or I said Stage 3, EUR 31 million.
For me, this, I cannot yet indicate a deterioration across the entire portfolio. I was even sharing that we have done a review of 500 group of connected customers, and only a handful we had to adjust our rating. We have put some others on the watchlist, but for me, this would be way too early, Riccardo, to already call out any structural deterioration. Having said all this, if the local situation in the Middle East starts settling and year 2027, 2028 economic forecast is being confirmed, then here we have a sort of a rolling model where the most actual update on macro, of course, counts the highest. We, as I also said in my introductory speech, part of this macro overlay hopefully could be released.
Hopefully, I did not dive too deep, but it is my current way of thinking. To reiterate, no confirmation that I see already a deterioration of the portfolio. Part of the macro overlay could be released by the year-end if GDP and rates outlook is being confirmed towards year-end. Thank you for the question, Riccardo.
And last-
Yeah, sorry. Sorry, Kamila. Exactly. Sorry.
Last but not least, if I understand correctly, there is a question on the redeployment of the capital taken out of Russia. Here we can look at it from two folds. One thing is redeployment of the capital, which is being from potential sale and so on and so forth. This is the timing is unclear, and the amount is not very clear, so we will talk about it when there would be a little bit more certainty.
But when it comes to the second part of the recovery effort is the claim from Rasperia. EUR 2.4 billion, which in damages, we have a claim that we need to file. First of all, we need to bear in mind that it might take up to two years from the time we file the claim for the recovery. Any damages suffered in Russia, recovery will be in medium term.
When it comes to how do we redeploy it, there is always a quite a standard toolbox. Some portion will be, of course, reserved for the dividends. Quite a substantial portion should be reserved for the organic growth. We see a very good trends on the organic growth throughout our markets, and hopefully that will continue in the midterm as well. Only to note is the personal loan growth year on year, 16%.
Overall growth of the loan portfolio at 7%. I think it's a very encouraging thing. Of course, M&A will be also part of the toolbox. Here, as I mentioned, we always have to be very careful when it comes to valuations. Currently, we see quite a high valuations in the attractive markets. If you find opportunities for successful and value-accretive redeployment of the capital in the M&As, we will pursue them as you've seen it now.
Perfect. Thanks. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. This is from Robert Brzoza from PKO BP Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking up my question so late during the presentation. I appreciate it. Luckily, most of my questions have already been answered, except for one. I'm curious what has happened with the other in trading income in the Russian subsidiary, even though it's in a way, gated. Could you comment whether you have lost permanently some income stream there? For what reason? Or this has been purely due to market conditions? Thank you.
Yeah. We are aware, or we made you aware that our business is shrinking, and this also leads to a reduction in the trading income. Trade flows are changing also. I think it's over time a declining business. I would like to say that given what we have, it's a combination of valuation and reduced business. Of course, you have a very volatile FX market. It's not the end, but it's in a reduction.
Got it. In other words, the revenue stream related to TurkStream servicing is still, I suppose, intact, isn't it?
Sorry. Could you repeat your latest?
Right. I was just wondering if this drop in the trading income, because I don't know where you book it, but according to the press commentaries, you are making quite a nice fee or trading result on the TurkStream servicing fees. I was just wondering whether this drop is somehow related to this business line or not.
No. What we do is if whenever there are international gas payments, we ask for licenses from the U.S. as well as from the Europeans. This is, it's simply depends on the overall development of the demand for Russian gas. This, I mean, that's not historically, that was not a big money. I don't think that it will be in the near future. It's rather that, it comes from mixed sources, but declining, as I said.
All clear. No, thanks.
Thank you. Thank you for all your questions. If you have any more, please remember dial star one and 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. Thank you. We will now take the next question. This is from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking a quick, a very quick follow-up. again, on loan growth, if I may, one second. Do you think, do you think that the robust loan growth that we have been seeing in the first quarter could have been somehow supported by corporations or in general by the need or the will to upfront funding and liquidity ahead of possible higher rates in the future or more difficult market conditions in the future, somehow inflated by that? Do you think it's organic, natural, robust underlying growth? Thank you.
Riccardo, there is I think there was yesterday also a beautiful statistic out there from the ECB, where you have seen that, if you look at PMI from the manufacturing sector, that some of the counterparts and the corporates are now beefing up their warehouses and their stock of goods. This I think was one. The second one, as we indicated already in Q4, and many of you have asked Johann two or three times if you're really sure that we can show this good trajectory. We have it already seen in our pipelines that there was really good structural demand also on the corporate side. I think it's threefold. It's what we have promised, in Q4 is being now delivered.
The second one is that working capital is increased, and also a sort of a preloading of goods to be available. I think no one again, would like to experience a situation like in 2020 or 2022 to have any supply chain shortages. These are the three things why we see such a strong support. I would not just like to allocate it to the situation in Iran. We really had also very good support it, but the work started much earlier and materialized in Q1. Thanks for your question, Riccardo.
Thanks. Thanks, Hannes. Thanks for the answer.
Thank you. We now conclude the Q&A session. With this, I hand back to Mr. Johann Strobl.
Thank you, operator. Dear ladies and gentlemen, as this is my last call with you, I want to thank you. It was a great time with you. I enjoyed all these calls, but also the meetings which I had with you personally, all the events. There had been many. All of your questions I loved very much. Your view on RBI is always very good, very detailed. I'm always excited looking also when to your assumption on the next earnings and I'm deeply impressed how you understand the bank. I wanted to thank you for all your efforts you took and all the efforts you do to explain your thoughts about our bank to your customers and our investors. Thank you for all this.
I believe, as I could say earlier, the bank is in a very good shape. The skills what the banks have, the markets where we are in, but also the new management team is very skilled, very ambitious. I'm looking forward to see you somewhere and I wish you all the best. Thank you. Thank you, operator as well. Bye.
Thank you. You may now disconnect.