Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Maciej Krywoniuk. I'm responsible for Strategy and Investor Relations in the bank, and it's my pleasure to welcome you at the presentation of Q4 2024 financial results. We will be also commenting briefly on the full-year results for Bank Handlowy w Warszawie S.A. Let me start with saying that before we go into the details, I just wanted to let you know that we will not comment on consumer bank exits, and I wanted to share with you that any important milestones on this will be communicated to the Warsaw Stock Exchange in the form of current report, if we have something to communicate to the investors, analysts, and market participants. We are sharing the presentation on the screen. It's also available at our website. Let me start on page two, which, as mentioned before, is a summary of 2024.
It is my pleasure to share with you that 2024 was recognized by high client activity, and that was the activity that we recorded in our strategic areas where we want to achieve growth. If you look at the slide on the institutional banking side, the year-end position of our lending was PLN 15 billion, and this translates into 8% year-over-year growth. Also, on the consumer banking, our core competence is definitely the wealth management area. If you look at the deposits of individual clients, we ended the year with a deposit portfolio of slightly above PLN 20 billion, which translates into 5% year-over-year growth. It was another record year in terms of the wealthy clients' portfolio. When you look at the number of Citigold private clients, it was 7% year-on-year.
Coming back briefly to the institutional banking and the portfolios, there are definitely trade finance, and trade finance transactions was one of the areas where we recorded growth and very dynamic growth of close to 60%, 58% year-over-year. FX volume on the institutional side grew 4% year-over-year. All this translated into net profit for the year at PLN 1.8 billion. The PLN 1.8 billion includes the write-up of PLN 252 million debt that we have recorded in the last quarter. The ROE was at 21.1% for the year, ROA at 2.4%. All this is above the banking sector levels. Good year all in all. Now, moving on to page three, which is a summary of Q4. From now on, I will be more commenting on the quarterly results. Revenue-wise, it was another quarter above the PLN 1 billion mark.
In fact, every quarter was a quarter above the PLN 1 billion. The net profit of the quarter was at PLN 368 million. The total balance sheet in terms of lending grew 6%. It is a blend of institutional and consumer bank growth, and the capital position remained strong with TLAC TREA ratio of 24.4%. Moving on to clients' activity. On the institutional banking side, the revenue was up 12% quarter- over- quarter. I'll be covering the details on the composition of the growth in a second. In terms of the lending, corporate and commercial banking clients primarily were the ones that were responsible for 6% quarter-on-quarter growth of the non-financial sector lending. Strong quarter in effect. The highest volume in the last nine quarters, 15% quarter-over-quarter increase, that contributed to income growth, which grew 8% QoQ.
We are very present in the landmark transactions of our clients, and this quarter was no different. We were present in the top investment banking transactions that you see on the slide. It is not Q1 presentation, but as shared by CEO and CFO in the medium and investors meeting held for Polish investors in the morning, Q1 is also recognized. There is a Q1 continued trend on the transaction side. Definitely momentum observed there. The transactional banking, I have mentioned very healthy trends in the year. Q4 was also a quarter where we recorded growth of trade finance assets by 29% quarter- over- quarter. It was another quarter in a row where we recorded growth. The consumer banking, definitely the wealth management, that was positively contributing to the results. The deposits increased 4% quarter on quarter.
If you look at private banking and wealth management portfolios, they are both growing quarter- over- quarter. Page four, which is the business volumes page, let's start with the institutional banking where the lending volume grew 6%. It's better than the sector, which grew 1%. When you look at the right-hand side where we are showing the new lending volumes with 23% year-over-year increase in the value of the lending that we have granted to institutional clients, it somehow proves the point that there are some positive trends there. We are still awaiting the real rebound, but among our target market clients, the growth was already recorded in the fourth quarter. You see the dynamics of the segments where primarily in the quarter, it was commercial bank, global clients, and corporate clients growing, but definitely corporate clients recorded the highest growth dynamics in the quarter.
The deposit volumes, they were flattish. It's not a great sign of a worry for us. Our liquidity position is very healthy. We are very liquid. The banking sector was slightly up in the quarter. We recorded no growth in the fourth quarter. However, talking about core competencies, definitely FX is one of the strategic areas for the bank. The institutional banking volumes were up 26% year-on-year. Corporate clients, commercial banking clients, the ones who are conducting cross-border activity and some new clients as well contributed to the 26% growth. Custody, I think this is the area we are not covering a lot in the quarterly earnings, but definitely custody, this is the area of the bank where we are number one in terms of the market share. We have got 40% market share.
We have acquired a new big client in this area, and it just reassured our number one position with market share growing 4 percentage points in Q4. Moving on to consumer banking volumes, the lending volumes are in a way reflected by high rates environment, which is impacting the demand in our view. There are some elements of growth. We see cash loans growing 7% year-over-year. All in all, the lending portfolio of the consumer bank is flattish, 1% down with sector at + 1%. There is some positive momentum when you look at year-over-year dynamics in the mortgage portfolio, where it's growing 6% year-on-year. The term deposits, the year-end position, when you look at year-over-year, it's + 5%. Primarily around term deposits growth, where both CPC and Citigold segment are behind the growth. The quarter-on-quarter growth is 4%.
Talking about volumes, definitely maybe a few words on FX volumes, because on one hand, if you look at the FX volumes in total, it's decreased 10% year-over-year, and it's a function of lower ticket, but definitely number of transactions growing. What happened is we see the number of transactions growing 14% year-over-year, but because the tickets are lower, the volume is slightly lower. Citi Kantor, our FX tool, is definitely widely used, and 70% of FX is conducted through this Citi Kantor channel. Okay. Let's move on to page number six. A few words on comment on the strategy of the bank, which was published in December last year. We didn't have a chance to speak since then. Just a few words on key KPIs and the vision.
We definitely continue to be the bank of first choice for clients with cross-border needs and aspirations. Talking briefly about what's behind the KPIs and what the KPIs are, we definitely are focusing on our institutional banking on the global network and solutions for clients with cross-border needs and cash management and trade and markets area. When you look at the KPIs, the return on equity that we are assuming is above the cost of capital, so above 15% ROE. The return on assets is above 1.8%. In terms of the efficiency ratio, we want to maintain the cost discipline with net single-digit growth in expenses and efficiency ratio below 45%. As per KNF dividend policy, we want to pay out minimum 75% of the net income in form of the dividend.
Our ESG strategy is an integral component of the business strategy where we have got a target for sustainable finance to grow to PLN 2 billion vis-à-vis the PLN 1 billion in 2024. We want to double the portfolio there. I will not be covering in detail slide seven, which is more the CSR slides. We were active in this area. There was a global innovation challenge. The third edition of the challenge, there were some significant grants that we have offered for the projects. This time, the theme was around employment solutions for low-income youth. A lot of traction there and quite successful challenge that we have already done there. Moving on to the financials. Slide nine, which is the revenue slide. Q4, in a way, completed the performance of every quarter where the revenue was above the PLN 1 billion mark.
The quarter-on-quarter growth was + 8%, primarily driven by institutional banking. The quarterly performance was the upside was primarily around the treasury line, both in the client and professional markets activity. It ties back to the core competencies that we have briefly discussed in the early slides. I'll be covering the NII line, which recorded some pressure, to be completely honest with you, this quarter. A good position with 8% quarter-on-quarter growth on the top line. Moving on into the composition of the revenue. NII and the net interest income. The NII was down 3% quarter- over- quarter. On the institutional side, it's a function of the balance sheet structure. It's more short-term impact of the quarterly impact of the change in the structure that we have recorded in Q4.
On the consumer bank side, some softness that you see in the NII line is the function of growing cost of deposits in the wealthy segments. The good news is that deposits, in a way, can be treated as the cost of acquisition for the wealthy clients. We more than compensate it on the investment product side where the deposits are transferred to the assets under management. This pressure on the NII line is seen in the net interest margin trajectory where the net interest margin for the bank was slightly lower in Q4, which is visible on the slide. Moving to the more forward-looking view, we are expecting a stabilization of NII, and it ties back to the rates forecast that we have from our chief economists.
The Fee line, some details behind the numbers that you're seeing on the slides, definitely strong performance on the institutional side. I've mentioned the custody. If you look at the institutional banking and the custody fee trends, it's + 26% quarter- over- quarter, + 26% year-on-year. We are number one, and it helps us to achieve the Fee growth in this area of our activity. The transaction banking with + 5% QoQ and + 4% year-over-year. 60% growth in volumes is definitely helping. On the consumer banking side, there is some seasonality effect on the credit cards where Q3 is the holiday month where a lot of travel happens. Q4 is more impacted by the seasonality. There is also some element of the acquisition costs that are there. Basically, just a word on comment on investments. I've mentioned that there are some healthy trends in investment.
If you look at the composition and the trends in investment with an increase in sales by 66%, the Fee line is + 4% quarter-over-quarter and + 29% year-over-year in the fees in the consumer banking career. The next page is the treasury page. In fact, this was the quarter with very strong performance, in fact, across all of the P&L lines in the treasury area. When you look at the trend, it has been a record level in the last five quarters. The QoQ growth was 9%. We have recorded growth in the net interest income treasury line in the trading result with strong performance in Q4 in this area. We have also realized gains. You see PLN 34 million positive contribution in the AFS result in Q4. On the client side, 8% growth. We have discussed the volume situation with growth and volume.
This was well reflected in the revenue from our client activity in the FX space. A word of comment on the valuation reserve. This was impacted by high yields. It is more a reflection of the market environment that we operate in. Moving on to expenses. Q4 is more impacted by seasonality. Maybe I'll focus my attention here on the right-hand side, which is a 2024 view. It is more a year snapshot than a quarterly snapshot. Just to give you a sense of some structure trends and what is happening in different expense lines. Definitely, the staff expenses are growing. It is a reflection on some of the staff expense pressure. Not different from the market, but also external services. It is primarily around regulatory and IT projects that we were executing throughout 2024.
There were several new regulatory requirements that we needed to tick the box on. We have completed them on time, but it's reflected in some growth in the external services. There is growth in the regulatory expenses. All in all, our expense line grew 7%. However, thanks to cost discipline that we have been consistently executing, it's lower versus the sector which grew at the pace of 11%. Our cost income remained at the very healthy level of 35% in the year. The quarterly cost income was at that 32%, as you can see on the page. Moving on to page 14, which is the cost of risk page. Definitely very solid set of results here in this cost of risk line. On the institutional banking side, PLN -3 million in terms of that was the cost to the P&L.
This is the more normalized cost of credit on the institutional banking side. Still, very healthy portfolio. It's a reflection of the portfolio quality and some release that we have recorded in the consumer banking side. Another quarter with release in this consumer banking segment. Both coverage ratio and the NPL levels are better than the market average. This was a brief summary of both the 2024 results as well as the quarterly results. We are opening now to questions. Okay. If there are no questions, we are available for you. You can reach out to the investor relations team. You have got the email address. Both Adam and Monika are there to assist you. Thank you very much for taking your time and joining the call. Please reach out to us if there are any questions.
Have a good rest of the day.