Welcome on financial results of Citi Handlowy for first quarter 2026. My name is Adam Piotrak. I'm Investor Relations Head. I'm with Maciej Krywoniuk, Head of Strategy and Investor Relations Department. We will go through this presentation. The presentation is available on the screen, and also as well on our website. Maciej, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Adam. And welcome everyone. Thank you for joining. I will walk you through the set of results for the first quarter 2026. It's my pleasure to share that it's been a solid quarter, and we'll walk you through the drivers behind the results. Maybe before we start, just a few words of explanation regarding sale and exit from our Consumer Banking business. The mid-year date for the demerger that we announced some time back still holds. We will be informing, you know, the clients and all relevant stakeholders about the process in due course. The first messages went out yesterday. 14- days prior to the demerger date, we are planning to have more communication regarding the details.
In terms of the highlights of the quarter, financially, the net profit reached PLN 386 million. It's been 17% above the consensus. The return on equity is solid 19.2%. Strong capital ratio with TLAC TREA at 23.5%. The balance sheet has been growing this quarter. At quarter end, the loans were up 13% and deposits 15% year-over-year. I will walk you through more details on the following slides. We have been focused on execution of our strategy, which is the bank for global business. In terms of the institutional loan growth, we reached a record balance of PLN 17.1 billion in this segment.
It's been five consecutive quarters of growth in the institutional lending book. We have been observing quite significant client activity. When you look at the deposit volumes, they were up 13% quarter-over-quarter. Custody business reported growth of transaction volume by 18% QoQ. We have been investing in the technology platforms, including the AI tools. These were primarily focused on enhancing our client experience, and enhancing the global connectivity, as per our strategic directions. We implemented tools for relationship managers as well to improve their experience in terms of, you know, how well they can access information about their customers.
On the Consumer Banking side, the consistent growth in Wealth Management, the number of clients in Citigold Private Client segment was up 3% quarter-over-quarter. Moving on to the next page number three, we will walk you through the business volumes. In terms of the lending book, when you look at the graph, the Loan portfolio was 18% up year-over-year. It's been growing more than 3 x faster than the banking sector. QoQ growth was also positive with 5%, and primarily contributing to the growth in terms of the year-on-year view were the segments of global and corporate clients.
The deposit volumes, I mentioned them in the beginning of the, of the presentation, but in the Institutional Banking, they were recording double-digit growth with 16% QoQ and 22% year-over-year. Strong performance in the financial markets, It's also a reflection of transaction volume, value, which among others in the brokerage department, were up by 15% year-over-year. On the, on the Services side, 38% growth of our trade finance assets. And in Custody, the value of the volume of assets under Custody was also 22%, 23% up.
When you look at the red arrow at the bottom of the page, with 49% decline in the new financing granted in the quarter one, it's the base effect of last year, where in Q1 2025 we have granted a large facility, and it impacted the growth rate in a negative way. Page four is just a, you know, a summary of landmark transactions executed this quarter. I've mentioned, you know, that the client activity was strong and that's just the evidence of a few transactions that we have executed, varying sectors from P4, which is a Play operator, automotive, and trade sector as well. That's the slide with transactions.
Moving on to the slide on the Consumer Banking volumes, which is page number five in the presentation. Flattish loan volumes in consumer bank with 1% decline quarter-over-quarter. They were up 2% year-over-year. The deposit volume stable with 1% QoQ and 2% year-over-year growth. What's important is the Wealth Management business with private banking growing both in terms of the total relationship balance that we hold for our clients, which was up 9% year-over-year, and number of Citigold Private Clients increasing by 16% compared to last year. It's my pleasure to share with you what's on the next page. Our Citi Handlowy Foundation is 30 years old this year.
As you can see on the slide, the contribution for social activities amounted to over PLN 110 million in terms of the budget. When you look at number of beneficiaries, they sum up to over 10 million, so significant numbers here. We have been and will be committed to support the communities we operate in. It's gonna be executed continuously through the Citi Handlowy Foundation. Now moving on to some details behind the financial results, starting with the top line. Just briefly, the total bank revenue was at PLN 1.2 billion, which is the second-highest historically. The highest historically was three years ago.
Just to remind you, the interest rate level was 300 basis points higher compared to where we are now. Something to be proud of in terms of the top line. The total revenue amounted to PLN 971 million in the Institutional Banking. It includes the almost PLN 200 million of gains from sale of debt securities in the quarter. When you look at the growth rates, both 33% QoQ and 24% year-over-year, represents significant growth. In terms of the contribution from different areas, that's the management view on the right-hand side. The revenue dynamics are positive in each of the product categories that you see, ranging from financial markets through services and relationship banking.
The Consumer Banking revenues were at PLN 228 million. They were down 8% quarter-over-quarter. It's a function of lower interest rates. All in all, summarizing the page, it was a strong quarter in Institutional Banking, definitely. Moving on to net interest income page. So the next interest income was slightly affected by realized gains on the sale of the debt securities, and that's primarily what's behind the decline that is 8% QoQ. It's been offset by growing lending portfolio. What we want to share with you is definitely that we are very focused on discipline around interest expenses. They were down this quarter despite the growth of the deposit book in the bank.
The net interest income on the Consumer side, PLN 186 million, down by 8% QoQ. Again, a function of declining rates. When you look at the net interest margin graph, the NBP reference rate was at 3.75% in Q1. Our house view is that there will be no change in interest rates by year-end. Our CFO shared this morning that we are expecting the stabilization in the NII line this year. Moving on to fees line. PLN 107 million in the Institutional Banking for Q1. It's slightly lower compared to last year. There were some episodic transactions executed in Q1 2025. No major episodics this year in Q1.
When you look at the main contributors behind the fee line, it's Custody and Transaction Banking. They represent more than 80% of the revenue. In fact, the Consumer Banking, the fees amounted to PLN 39 million. They were kind of stable QoQ and year-on-year. No major changes in the Consumer Banking side. Moving on to our Treasury business. It's been a strong quarter for our Treasury area with PLN 918 million of revenues. They were up 35% QoQ. Definitely very strong trading results and AFS gains that you see on the graph, both close to PLN 200 million.
It's in a way preparation of the balance sheet for the demerger. As you are aware, our Consumer business is very liquid. It's got more deposits than loans, we need to prepare for the demerger planned for mid-year. You know, liquidity requirements for the upcoming transactions. In terms of the balance sheet, you see the mix on the right-hand side. We are kind of more towards short terms investment securities at the moment.
The revaluation reserve that you see at the bottom of the page at PLN -108 million is the function of the macro environment changes linked to the war in Ukraine and the changes that happened in the operating environment that followed. Moving on to expenses, which is page number 12. PLN 335 million in Institutional Banking this quarter. It's a quarter where seasonally we are booking the regulatory expenses at the elevated level. The Q1 is characterized by the banking guarantee fund contribution this time was no different. Slightly higher regulatory expenses. You see PLN 110 million compared to PLN 88 million last year.
When you look at more details in Q1 in terms of the type of expenses that were growing, I've walked you through the regulatory expenses that were up PLN 30 million compared to last year. The IT investments are behind the PLN 17 million growth in the expense line, that these are the investments in the tech infrastructure and linked with, you know, our ability to increase the client experience and the global connectivity. Staff expenses with PLN 11 million growth. That's our focus on keeping the salary levels competitive. I would draw your attention to the cost income ratio, which you see for Q1 was at the level of 34%. Very healthy cost income for the Institutional Banking .
Despite, you know, growth in some of the areas, we are still very committed to the cost discipline that the bank is well-known for. The operating expenses on the Consumer Banking side was PLN 214 million. They were higher by 31% QoQ. They were also up 8% year-over-year. The growth is primarily linked with the incurred migration expenses and the preparation for the transaction that's ahead of us. In terms of the cost of risk, cost of risk is at PLN 17 million in the Institutional Banking area. We have booked additional provisions. That's the growth which is linked with the provisions related to the portfolio growth.
Nothing that is to worry about in terms of what's in the PLN 17 million. When you look at both the coverage ratio and share of stage 3, they are at much better levels compared to the banking sector, with coverage ratio at 64% in the bank and share of stage 3 at 2%. Cost of risk in the Consumer Banking segment amounted to PLN 3 million, which is a positive result of write-offs. We have also executed the sale of the non-performing loan portfolio in Q1 this year. Briefly, that's the summary. When you look at page 14, maybe I would just draw your, again, your attention to the total revenue level at PLN 1.2 billion.
Very, you know, strong top line results this quarter. Also that helped to generate the ROE at 19.2% and keep the ROA at high level at 2%. The net profit of PLN 386 million and all this with, you know, significantly higher tax rate, which grew from 19%-30%. That's in a nutshell all from my side, you know, now I open the floor to questions. If there are no questions, thank you very much for joining today.
Hello?
Yeah, hello.
Yeah. Hi, it's [Peter Priisalm from Avaron Management]. May I ask the question on loan growth? Now that the retail banking is out of the system, in which segments in corporate lending do you see perspectives for growing or what could be the strategy for speeding loan growth going forward? Thank you.
We are not changing the targets. Thank you for the question, Peter. We are not changing the target market as such, you would not expect to observe that, you know, the risk profile of the bank will be changing. The two growth engines that we are looking for as per our strategy are defense and energy security and energy transformation in general. These are the, from a project perspective. When you look at the segments, in fact, you know, there is no singled-out segment where we are expecting more growth.
You know, we have been, you know, executing very long-standing relationships with our clients and we observe some projects that are executed at the corporate levels. It's always, you know, the case that there are such transformational deals. We are part of such transactions. They also include some cross-sell elements. Whenever we land, we also make sure that, you know, the cross-sell is included so that our profitability profile is also maintained going forward. I hope this answers the question.
Maybe just to follow up on that, do you see those defense and energy security segments mostly in kind of state projects or you are more focused on kind of private companies doing those projects? Follow-up, if these are state-owned, how is the kind of margin outlook there? Because I think the state-owned banks are also very keen to invest into those projects. Is there some kind of appetite for you to go for those low margins?
Well, you're right on the, on the competitive side of things. Definitely it's been and it is a very competitive market. We are observing some margin compression in those high-demand, you know, projects around security and energy transformation. That's why we usually offer full range of products, including some treasury-related hedging solutions for as part of these transactions. So there usually is some element of risk management component, since quite often the tenures are longer. Basically, to your question on whether it's more state-owned or private, I would say it's both. We are active in both areas.
Basically, where we are also active is some of the projects that are executed on the private side by large corporates that are multinationals that are present in Poland, and they are behind some of the energy projects, energy transformation projects. Since they, we are their home bank in a way, so basically this is where we are also active on the private side.
Thank you.
Okay. Are there any more questions that you would like to ask?
Okay. Thank you for joining. Thank you for your time, and have a nice, the rest of the day.
Thank you for joining, and see you soon. Bye.
Bye-bye.