Good morning, and welcome to our conference, in which we are going to summarize 2025. Michał Bolesławski, President of the Board; Bożena Graczyk, Deputy President responsible for finance; Rafał Benecki, the Chief Economist; Iza Rokicka, who's responsible for investor relationships, who is going to chair this meeting with me. I'm Piotr Utrata. I'm the spokesperson for the bank. Michał, over to you.
Good morning. We have some good news that we would like to share with you. Let's begin with our customers. 2025 saw a 133,000 growth of retail customers, which is much more than in the previous year. With a growth, net, net growth of 309,000, which means 4.7 million retail customers. On the side of companies, the growth was 22,000, up to 554,000, which is nearly 600,000 companies that we have in our portfolio at the moment. Now, in our strategy, we said that by 2035 we will have 800,000, which means we are on the, on the right track, and if we maintain a similar level of growth, we will achieve this goal. For retail, we are speeding up, and we will try to continue accelerating this year, and the performance is definitely much better than in 2024. Mortgage is particularly important and interesting. They grew by PLN 8 billion to PLN 69 billion, and our market share grew to 14.2%. This is in comparison to 13.5 in the previous year, so the growth was significant.
When it comes to production, we were consistently in the second place on the market, with a 19% share, and this is correct for pretty much every month and every quarter. Now, for retail loans, the growth was PLN 2.1 billion, and we got close to a 5% market share, although the exact number is 4.93%. Year-on-year, the growth is 12%, and this, too, is an ambition area for us, and we want to keep building this segment as communicated in our strategy. When it comes to corporate, loans grew by 5%, and this is PLN 4.6 billion, to a level of PLN 101 billion . These growths were mostly related to investment lending, and for the biggest clients, these were loans for the public sector.
Or maybe I should rephrase this: This is for companies where the State Treasury has a majority shareholding. For SMEs, the growth was about PLN 2.5 billion year-on-year, which is much more than in 2024, when it was less than PLN 1 billion. I think it was actually PLN 0.5 billion. Now, this is not the level of increase that we would wish for, yet, but certainly there has been a growth. On the side of deposits, the market share was stable at about 10.24%, for retail, 9.8%, for corporate. And we do not have a more active policy in this respect because we have been waiting for an increased demand, from the enterprises in order to be able to rationally manage this.
So these are the key data points from the point of view of the balance sheet of the bank and the basic dynamics. Let me also tell you something about what our competition situation is. When it comes to lending and to deposits, 2025 was a breakthrough year. We have leapfrogged over Santander, PLN 14 billion for loans, PLN 5 billion for deposits, so we are officially the third-largest bank in Poland when it comes to these parameters. Our balance sheet, some Santander is still larger by PLN 26 billion, but this results from other positions, not from these two basic, most important positions. Thank you very much. Bożena? Over to Rafał.
Good morning. Let me briefly summarize the previous year and tell you something about our forecasts for the coming years. 2026 will be yet another year of dynamic economic growth. We can see that the pace of growth is 3.7. It was also above 3% in the past few years. The Polish economy, historically, has not been growing very dynamically, but it's better than the region. For the second year running, the Polish economy has been delivering over 3% in terms of the growth. Romania, Hungary are not doing so well. The Czech Republic is doing slightly better. Germany is not delivering that either. This economic cycle is unusual. It's unusual because it is happening in spite of a reduction in employment. This is partly to do with the demographic situation, but it also shows that some companies are in trouble, and they are facing a huge increase of labor costs, whereas a low inflation means their revenues are growing slower.
The economic cycle is also unusual because we are, in the region, an industrial hub, but it's mostly services that are behind the growth. Transport, logistics, and also more advanced services are part of this basket. 2026 will be more balanced when it comes to the different contributions. Not just consumption, but also investment will be significant. Everyone is talking about public investment, and this is going to be the main factor that's going to generate half of the growth in 2026. And this is our forecast on the use of EU funds, with a growth of 0.8 percentage point through a larger grant absorption. 2027, we believe, will not see a breakdown because some of those grants and subsidies will move over to the following year, so 2027 will also have a good growth.
Now, we are all hoping for the private sector and its investment, but here it is not easy to be optimistic. The latest National Bank of Poland research shows that private companies are very cautious when it comes to investment, whereas public companies or publicly-held companies are much more dynamic when it comes to investment. But for the private sector, these plans are rather cautious. Inflation is another important part of it. When we talk to foreign investors, everybody is shocked to see that Poland's growing so fast while maintaining a low inflation. Well, this is possible because of a number of reasons. First of all, historically, this is unusual in terms of the cycle. We are not growing at 5%, we're growing at 3.4%. We don't have an investment boom.
The revenue policy is quite cautious, and the pace of growth of the minimum wage, public sector wages, and the average disposable income is much slower, growing at closer to 3%, rather than a double-digit pace like it did in the past years. As a result, inflation is going down. There's a demand barrier, and we can see that the pricing policies of companies are changing. We had the cost impulses with a response on the revenue side. Right now, it's different, and the economy is much more cautious and balanced. Natural resources are another part of it, and an expected slowdown in the pace of a wage increase. And finally, we have the contribution of Chinese goods. We've been paying attention to this and drawing your attention to this since last year.
At the beginning of the previous year, we had a questionnaire, a survey among companies, and it was clear that the competition from Chinese goods was very difficult. The central bank had a special analysis of it. Now, the contribution of the cheap imports from China is larger than in the region, and it's long-lasting. In Poland, the share of Chinese products is about 15%, and it's been growing. Our neighbors are at 7% or 8%. The graph at the bottom, in the left-hand corner, shows the imports of cheap goods from China that encourage disinflation, and this is the largest level of disinflation in the region. And this could be maintainable.
A situation like this lasted for four years before the pandemic, so we're expecting an average inflation of 1.7% this year, and a lowering of the rates to 3.25%. In terms of our predictions, we were very accurate last year. So we want to share this forecast, too. Now, exports are another driving force behind the economic growth. We are seeing a bit of economic recovery in Germany finally, which is good news for the Polish economy. Now, in terms of the structure, some of the sectors that are rebounding in Germany are not necessarily the sectors that buy things from Poland, so the Polish participation in the German supply chains is slightly different to what it used to be. But there is an economic recovery in Germany.
It is now seen in at the level of orders, not so much in industry. We are expecting a GDP growth in Germany of 1%, which is an improvement on years of stagnation, and in Germany, there is also a significant competition from China. So we are considering this to be a structural recovery. They still have lots of problems with the labor market and so on and so forth. Now, some words about our long-term forecasts. How can we maintain economic growth amidst demographic challenges and a low unemployment? Our analyses show that Poland indeed has a low unemployment level. And people say that labor force is not easily obtainable. But if we compare Poland to other countries, we can see that some significant structural changes on the labor market are on the horizon.
First of all, the share of large and small companies. We have a very, large number of small companies, which is sometimes the strength of the Polish economy, but the large companies are not so sufficient in terms of their number, and they tend to be more productive than the small ones. Recently, there have been structural changes in the employment structure, and this is a flow from SMEs to large companies, for example, and an internationalization of business, which again, is something that, without it, it would be difficult for the Polish economy to grow. Over the past 20 years, the shifts between different economic sectors were very clear, with an increase in services and decrease in agriculture, but we still have more people employed in agriculture than in other countries, so this could be a potential source of changes.
In services, our percentage of people employed in services is similar to the rest of the region, but it's still slightly lower than in the West. It's slightly lower than in the region and significantly lower than in the West, so this could also be changing in the coming years. You cannot grow without private investment in conditions like these. Without private investment, it's difficult to grow in this difficult employment situation. It's very important for the economic growth, and we have looked at it from a more international way. There are two schools of thought. According to one of them, businesses invest when they are generating a profit. Any book on corporate finance describe it as the Pecking Order Theory.
The other approach is that private business optimizes and also optimizes the capital structure and leverages it to increase its value. Now, the first theory, the Pecking Order Theory, as it's known, is typical for less developed countries. Poland is now a developed country. We are proud to have achieved a significant GDP, and we are entering the G-20, but companies are still behaving as if we were a very underdeveloped country, and this is something we're communicating to our clients. We're trying to make them realize that you can't grow with this approach to leverage and growth. And finally, institutions. We're a leader of growth and a leader of weak institutions and weak regulations. Now, this is not just about EU regulations, but also Polish regulations.
This is something the CEO loves very much, so I'm just pointing it out. And finally, the forecast for deposits and for loans. Obviously, it's all about how corporate lending will grow. There's a lot of discussion about lending being pushed out by public investment. Well, we assume that corporate lending will grow at about 10% or 11% this year, and mortgages are quite solid at over PLN 100 billion. Consumer lending growing well, and all of this in a situation of reduced interest rates. Now, corporate margins are quite low, plus there are problems with unemployment, with employment, so that will, at some point, translate into the lending situation. So we're hoping to lend more, not just to state-held companies, but to all of them.
Right now, there is more lending to SMEs, and this is slowly moving to the large corporate sector as well, but we're hoping for more. The leveraging of the Polish economy finished last year, and we're hoping for the lending to have a larger share than before.
Good morning. I would like to conclude, to add to what Michał said. I would like to tell you about our financial results in Q4 and the entire 2025. When we were beginning the quarter, it seemed that it will be a boring and calm one, but after we provided you with a pleasant surprise, we've not had this development of being 15% above the consensus. It's very happy news in terms of commercial changes and results that we are communicating in our balance. And indeed, a lot has been happening in this quarter. Our bank generated net profit, almost PLN 1.4 billion in Q4. It's 5% growth year-on-year, and 23% quarter-to-quarter.
In all of 2025, our financial result net was PLN 4.6 billion. It's 6% growth. These are historically high results of the bank, highest, quarterly and annual, results in the history of our institution. Of course, there's a question: What are the key drivers that result in such growth? Well, I'd like to point out that it's possible due to our increased commercial activity. Our result before cost of operation was a 9% growth, and 6% quarter-over-quarter, and 3% year-over-year in all of 2025. We identify lower risk costs. In Q4, they went down by 25%, and by 19% year-over-year in all of 2025.
Of course, the net result was also impacted by one-off changes related to deferred tax. For our institution, the net result increased by PLN 63 million because of that. It is a result of changing CIT rates in 2026. I also wanted to point out to a minor in percentage-wise but still a significant and pointing to the opportunities that we are tapping into with the market variability. Other revenues in Q4, PLN 164 million, we maintained the trend from the previous quarter, and I think it's also worth noting that in all of 2025, this item was PLN 624 million.
I wanted to point out the result on financial instruments, which are priced at fair value, up to PLN 116 million. Also, the sales of bonds and securities, PLN 43 million, a similar development to the previous quarters. We have PLN 25 million of a negative adjustment to collaterals. So this is the same development related to changes of interest rates. Because the profitability curves and interest rate moves are not aligned. This is an accounting result, and it will be reversed in the next period. The interest result was PLN 2.3 billion in Q4. That's a 5% growth, quarter-over-quarter, and 2% year-on-year.
It is due to an improved interest margin. Michał talked about it. Loans increased by 2% quarter-over-quarter, 8% year-on-year. Deposits increased by 1% and 7%, respectively. Our quarterly interest margin improved by 15 basis points, 3.30%. This is mainly due to lower costs of financing. The cost fell by 17 basis points, with a very stable level of profitability of assets. Our cumulated margin was 3.27%, going down by 5 basis points, quarter-on-quarter, and it's following lower interest rates of the market. Credit-to-loan ratio was 76.6%, improving by 0.6.
It was due to faster lending by 2% quarter-to-quarter, and deposits increased by 1%. The averages for the banking sector are still very low. Our level, 77%, has to be compared to the market average that we see from the National Bank of Poland reports, and is 65.3%, according to the NBP. Fees and commissions result PLN 598 million. It's roughly the same as Q3, but it increased by 6% year-on-year. In all of 2025, the fees and commissions increased by 3%. Here, I wanted to point out that fees related to the equity market increased by 29%, and we're very happy that 38% growth was related to investment funds.
This is a result of very good growth of the market, and high net inflows that we are monitoring. Our retail customers, at the end of the year, had PLN 25 billion in investment funds. That's a 39% growth year-on-year, and 9% quarter-on-quarter. 13% growth was in insurance commissions. This is due to our activity in selling mortgages, and it's a natural consequence of the 13% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter, is the result. We also see high activity of our customers on their bank accounts. We have recorded 6% growth year-on-year and 5% quarter-on-quarter of fees related to running these bank accounts.
In all of 2025, we have 3% growth of fees and commissions. In a brief, in a nutshell, it's a result of 15% of increasing charges related to the equity market, 8% increase of fees in insurance, and 6% growth of revenues related to running the accounts. In terms of our costs, in Q4, they amounted to PLN 1.2 billion. It's a 5% drop quarter-to-quarter, and 6% increase year-on-year. Our annual cost was PLN 5.5 billion, an increase of 8% year-on-year. I think you need to point out that in 2025, we've recorded 21% increase of regulatory costs and 5% growth of our own costs.
They are naturally linked to increasing personnel costs due to the need to revise remuneration. We've had higher cost of marketing, IT, communication, including SWIFT. So these movements have contributed to the level of our cost including inflation and our operational costs. In terms of cost of risk, in this quarter, the cost of risk was PLN 189 million. In this line, we have PLN 59 million of provisions for CHF mortgages. It's a drop of 25% compared to the previous quarter. Like other banks in this quarter, we also sold irregular loans in the corporate segment. As a result, we've had PLN 9 million of a positive contribution. In this quarter, we have neutral impact of the adjustment related to macroeconomic parameter change.
In the retail segment, this resulted in higher provisions. In the corporate segment, a net drop. It's insignificant item. And what is also worth saying is that, indeed, we are identifying lower cost of risk in the corporate segment. We have higher recovery, less irregular or non-performing loans. As a result, the cost of risk in the corporate sector was PLN 56 million. The cost of risk for all of 2025 was 45 basis points after removing CHF provisions. So looking at the trends of the five quarters that we are showing you here and our strategy, the cost of risk is within the long-term trend that we've been seeing in the past.
In the terms of the quality of portfolio, stage 3 loans decreased by 21 basis points to 3.7. It's a result of sales of corporate loans supported by increased value of the lending portfolio. Here, I wanted to mention the very good quality of the retail portfolio. The NPL ratio is 1.2%. Mortgages are at a very low level of irregularity or non-performance, and it's very important also due to the implementation of our strategy. Provisioning ratio, stage 3, went down by 3.3 percentage points. It's currently 49%. It's a natural consequence of selling irregular, non-performing receivables. In terms of capital adequacy, TCR is 14.98%. It improved by 11 basis points in the quarter.
There are a number of different developments. In Tier 1, it's due to the improvement of improvement loss on lending provisions. It's a transitional development before financial result is approved, and in this specific quarter, this was also linked to the sale of non-performing receivables. On the other hand, risk-adjusted assets have increased as a result of lending. In October, we informed the market about a new subordinated loan of EUR 250 million being taken. We received the KNF approval to have it included in our capital, and the positive contribution will be around 83 basis points.
The information that we always share with you, when talking about results for Q4, I would like to confirm that it is the intention of the management board to recommend to the supervisory board to pay dividend of 75% of the profit for 2025, in line with the dividend policy of the KNF, the Financial Supervision Authority. We meet all the requirements, and this is the recommendation that we're going to submit to the supervisory board, so as to have the maximum level allowed of dividend for 2025. Let me remind you that in the context of what you can expect in terms of capital requirements and what will be the result of paying a dividend, as of Q3 of this year, we've seen a 1% growth of the anti-cyclical buffer. Then we're going to have another growth of one percentage point. As a result, the TCR will increase from 12.5% to 13.5% next year.
At the same time, 25% of the net result that we will leave in our capital will naturally increase the capital indicators. It will amount to 98 basis points in addition. Thank you very much, and we'll be happy to take your questions.
We'll begin with questions from the floor here in the room, and then we'll take questions from the internet.
Good morning. Konrad Krasuski, Bloomberg. I have two questions. The first is about the interest margin. This seems to be... We seem to be the only bank in the country to see it improved. The CEO is because of the lower cost of financing. So the question is, this reverse trend to what is the broad trend, can it be maintained in the coming quarters? And also, what does it actually result from?
We are talking about lower rates, but how long can you post these positive tendencies without risking an outflow of customers? And my second question is about what the CEO mentioned when he said that in corporate lending, the dominant weight in the growth is the large state-owned companies and corporations. Will this be maintained? And don't you think this might be a concentration risk for you in the future?
In a nutshell, as you can see in the presentation, we do have a reduced cost of financing given a stable profitability on assets. Let me begin by saying that our bank tends to be less vulnerable to changing rates throughout the cycle, and this is one of the elements you have to bear in mind when thinking about how our interest margin is changing.
These measures, these indicators, tell us a lot about the vulnerability of the interest performance in interest results within a year. Secondly, it has to do with our competition, the number of days in a quarter. When you think about, you know, what the interest margin will be in Q1, you have to bear in mind there are fewer days. Given the scale, the size of the balance sheet, that has impact on the result and on the interest margin. Now, thirdly, in late Q3 and Q4, we reduced our standard interest on the OKO Account, which translated directly into an increased interest margin. As we said many times, and as the representatives of the banking sector have been saying, the sensitivity of the interest margin to changing interest rates is obvious.
So it's not something you can overlook. The interest margin in the banking sector will be going down as rates go down, and they will also go down in our bank. How fast this will happen will be depend on the overarching interest rate policy and what can be very easily seen in the sort of NII. So this is an important element, I think. And another thing is that the lower the basis rate, the higher the sensitivity, because there is a certain natural line for the maximum interest that can be present in the banking sector, especially on the passive side. Now, another impact is something we have talked about a lot before, namely, with these over-liquidity indicators, loans are very much in demand when it comes to banking products.
So the competition among banks grows, which also translates or impacts the interest rate. So all of these factors that I've listed will impact how the interest margin accumulated and quarterly it will look like going forward. Now, about corporate loans. It's a relative dependency. PLN 4.6 billion is the overall growth of corporate lending, and this includes both SMEs and large companies. The loan portfolio, when you look at small and medium-sized and large ones, is PLN 60 billion, whereas the largest is about PLN 40 billion. So if you look at that relatively, the dynamics was higher for the large companies, but in absolute numbers, the actual amount was smaller than the growth in SMEs. PLN 2.6 billion for the SMEs, PLN 1.9 billion for the large corporates, if I remember this number off the top of my head.
So relatively speaking, this is what it looks like. You know, 1.9 in proportion to 40 is more than 2.6 against 60. We are not afraid about concentration limits being impacted because we are paying attention to them. So I think that's probably what you are referring to. Any company that has some state shareholding are always an important part of the balance sheet of every Polish bank. So looking at the constraints and the limits, and also the prospects for the defense industry, for energy, for airports, and other segments, we are certainly paying attention to it. From the point of view of the future development, the concentration limits, we might be getting closer to them. Right now, however, there is no such threat for the time being. So that's for state-owned companies.
When it comes to SMEs, it's all relative. It's all about how we segment them internally and how we perceive a particular company, or which part of it, of this basket, it belongs to. All in all, like Rafał said, the sector did not generate the level of investment we would wish for, and most of investment comes from the public sector, so it is no surprise that a lot of the lending goes there. And this year is shaping up to be similar. There don't seem to be any grounds to think that any significant change is coming. But we are paying attention to the concentration limits, and you can rest assured that if any threat of exceeding them were to materialize, we would be reacting, but we are still very far away from that point.
Good morning. Jason Matrowski, Interia. To follow up on what my colleague has just said about the concentration limits, I would like to understand this well. Is it the case that if you have an energy company, a construction company, a maritime shipment company that has, for example, 20% of state shareholding? Let's say there is 20% of shares owned by the State Treasury in each of these companies. Is there a concentration limit for all of these companies, whatever the State Treasury shareholding is? Or maybe you only count them if they're above 30% or below 20%, or if it's close to 50%. Is there any sort of division into categories? Or maybe we have a concentration limit per branch, for example, a concentration limit for defense companies, a separate concentration limit for energy companies, and so on. So what are these limits?
Also, secondly, how does that relate to bonds? Do you take all these things together or it's separate? I have another question, which is about mortgages. What's the situation with mortgage refinancing? I think a quarter ago, you said that you were benefiting significantly from the refinancing of mortgage loans. Is the trend still present or has it now ended? If it's still there, what's the share of refinancing in the sales of new loans? I have a third question about the tax on deferred assets. You mentioned that it's PLN 63 million, and that is included in this year's result. Does that mean that you will not be paying this tax next year? Am I correct in understanding this? Thank you.
Let's finish talking about the concentration limits first. We have concentration limits that are sort of like trees that take into account all the shareholding in all the companies where the State Treasury is a shareholder. In zlotys, the weight is zero, and in others, it's proportional to the shareholding. So when it comes to euro-denominated bonds, the weight is 20%. This is defined by some EU regulations as well. And all of that translates in how we look at companies, where the State Treasury is the ultimate owner of those entities. Now, about a sectoral division, we don't have a concentration limit per sector. We just have our own risk appetite defined in certain ways per sector. Now, we don't talk about it publicly.
It's not open information, but we sometimes announce that a particular sector will be preferred or it will not be preferred, depending on things like, the sector's, growth dynamics. So this is our, policy, but this is not something we talk about to the, external world. But it's not like a concentration limit per se, it's more of our internal approach to, individual sectors. Now, about the, deferred tax assets, the over PLN 60 million positive influence, it is positive because in most banks, including ours, there are more assets than liabilities from, the accounting result, which is not taxable yet. The deferred tax on assets means the accounting costs are there, but they are not tax costs at that point.
Now, the changing rate means that the financial result improves, and this will be qualified as a taxable cost, depending on when those results materialize, in 2026, 2027, and so on. Now, those will be taxed according to the rates that will be in place when they become costs. Now, our loan provisions are the biggest item there, of course. So if you look at these PLN 63 million, that's the net impact as evaluated by us of the moments those accounting adjustments are happening in the coming years. Now, about the refinancing for mortgages, what we can still see is a situation where there is a positive impact of refinancing on the growth of loans coming to us from other banks.
As you have seen, our growths for portfolios are very high, and we are in the second place on the market, so obviously, part of that is also refinancing. What we have seen in 2025, especially in quarter three and four, was that there were more applications for refinancing. Now, it is higher in terms of growth for fixed rate loans, but in the Polish banking system, also the floating rate loans are being refinanced. If someone needs a mortgage, if they can pay back some of it or all of it earlier, they usually want to do it, especially given the higher interest rates that we saw during the course of 2025. So in principle, we can see increased refinancing of mortgages, and there's a growing trend for fixed rate mortgages.
Given our market share in the sales of new loans, we can see a growing contribution of those refinanced loans.
Kamil Stolarski. Kamil Stolarski, Santander Bank. Congratulations on commissions. Overtaking Santander, managing your resources is my question. The number of personnel fell by 4%, number of outlets by 2025, and in the market, according to KNF data, the number of employees increased by 2%. So what is the reason for this difference in dynamics in employment? What is the difference between ING and the rest, ING and the rest, since we have this dynamic?
Well, we're consequently implementing a policy where we've been reducing our physical presence, and that was one of the reasons of falling employment. The second element was efficiencies in operations that we are implementing online digital variants of processes, which means that in operations, employment is being reduced, including KYC operations that we are trying to automate as much as possible. In terms of increased employment in banks, this is mainly due to the activity of banks after some less active time related to CHF mortgages. Millennium, mBank, from the disclosed information, these are the banks that are increasing employment, according to what we know.
This is the reason on our side. It's hard for me to comment why things are different in other institutions. If you look at the physical presence, we have less than the seven main banks, and this is related to how processes are designed on our side and our strategy. Increased numbers of customers do not mean that we need to employ more people. Let me just add that it's worth looking at long-term trends. We've had periods when we were increasing net employment in a situation where other banks were maintaining employment or reducing employment.
I think that apart from what Michał mentioned, you have to think about a different cycle of meeting needs, regulatory projects, investment projects. We had a period in our history when we were significantly increasing employment in compliance and risk areas related to KYC procedures, and that was a period that is already behind us. As we've been consistently communicating, we are continuously improving productivity and efficiency of our operations, and as a result, we can continuously reduce employment. It's a number of different factors at play here. It's due to the centralization, digitalization, and the needs related to the implementation of projects, specifically in IT.
A detailed question on the other result, on other. This is a result that has increased the most. Madam President mentioned it, and I did not expect this growth. PLN 600 million is a lot, and PLN 400 million is a result on effects. Has there been any structural change at the bank that the result is not PLN 200 million but PLN 600 million? Or is it the situation in the market during 2025?
Well, there are two factors, in my opinion. It's always something that is related to the balance sheet and variability of the market. The year 2025 saw a lot of volatility in terms of FX, but also interest rates. In many FX transactions, in swap operations, interest rates are what matter very much. So nothing special happened. It's just that we've had the right market positions before they arise.
You recently had two changes in the management board. Do I understand the strategy has not been changed? Do you expect any new accents? Can you comment on that, please?
In terms of private banking and wholesale, this is where the changes were. In wholesale, it's effective as of the first of April, and we can tell you more once the change happens. But in general, as ING, we follow a long-term strategy, a strategy of continuation, maybe with some new elements related to the personality of the member of the board, but we're not expecting any revolution in wholesale or private banking. In terms of private banking, we are saying, communicating, that we're building this position.
The role of the management board that was appointed in May, Ewa, was to build foundations, and that there was an announcement that there would be a change on the first of January, and it happened. We have a new person with a new approach, a new insight resulting from the experience of another financial institution, and we see that this person is very good for the job. She comes from Santander. We believe that this new approach will contribute to an even better performance of the strategy that we have defined, the growth in investment funds in more affluent customers, private banking customers. We believe that the Polish public will be more affluent. Well, it will be aging. The public will be aging and becoming more affluent.
This is something that Wojciech contributes to this area. In terms of wholesale, Agnieszka is well-known from her work in a number of banks, and we believe that she will be able to successfully implement the strategy that we have adopted. We wanted to increase the value of wholesale loans 2.5 x until 2035. It's not a major challenge in our opinion, and she will contribute her personal experience, bringing in some new elements. But in principle, we are going to follow the strategy that we've been implementing thus far.
Any other questions from the room? I'll take a question from the internet. Personal income tax and CIT, the changes that are expected, and the effective tax rate in 2026.
In the entire sector, we should expect a rate of close to 40%. Of course, there's the issue of regulatory costs that we still don't know, but I think you have to assume a rate closer to 40% than 35%.
Moving on to questions related to the interest result. A question to Rafał: What are our expectations in terms of the ultimate reference rate?
3.25 is our forecast. Financial markets always have alternative scenarios. The risk is that it may be a bit lower, but not below 3. That's what we expect.
And about our commission margin and result, a question related to: Why do we have a flat performance of assets, and what was the delta of hedging on results for Q4?
The Macro Cash Flow Hedge specifically influenced the performance of assets. So this minor change, 1 basis point, in three to fourth quarters, demonstrates the effectiveness of our hedging strategy, and in this item, you have all that I already mentioned. It's a cumulation of Macro Cash Flow Hedging, the volume dynamics, margin dynamics. So there is no single answer to this question, but our resilience to interest rate changes in the short term, due to our hedging strategy, is a big contributor here. In terms of the impact of the Macro Cash Flow Hedge, I think it's no mystery, it's no secret, that we are seeing a positive quarterly contribution of the macro cash flow accounting per quarter. In this quarter, it was around PLN 900 million.
In terms of the change of the provision quarter to quarter, not everything moves over to the commission's margin, because that is also about the pricing of derivatives in the structure of the macro cash flow hedge.
There's a question about SOT NII and SOT EVE at the end of 2025. Well, this information will be disclosed in our annual report. Right now, I can tell you that they are significantly below the regulatory required levels. They will be one of the lowest in the sector. I can say that, looking at the information disclosed by other banks in previous quarters and the communication related to it. So please wait until the publication of our annual report. The two indicators will be disclosed there.
In the context of Q4 result, we have a question about the operating costs, and specifically, what is behind the drop of general management costs quarter-over-quarter.
In this quarter, there are a number of different drivers that contribute to the quarterly level of cost, because the activity of the bank is not the same in every quarter, particularly in the implementation of different projects. But in this quarter, I think what I can tell you is that we managed to complete our settlements with two major partners. As a result, the level of cost was lower than the one coming from the contractual conditions. So it's a result of the renegotiation of important projects.
Looking at the room, I see no hands, so I will continue with online questions. More about the outlook now for the future, and a request for a comment, price pressure from competitors for lending.
The pressure, it is higher and higher. We saw it among business clients first. Demand and supply are quite different in this sector, so the margin was going down. Right now, there is also pressure for mortgages. The margin i ncreasingly, it's shrinking, and it may continue to shrink as well. This is what we see, and we see what the competition is doing. They are lowering their prices, so that will also impact the market margins. On the corporate side, like we said, this is because banks are more willing, much more willing to give loans than there is demand on the side of the corporates. So we have to fight for those loans much more, especially that all banks, even those that used to be more passive because of the Swiss franc situation, have now joined in the fray, and the same is now moving into the world of mortgages. But the growth of the market is significant in this segment, so the impact might be smaller than in the corporate clients.
A request about the commission outlook for the coming year.
As you know, we do not present this outlook in principle. For commissions, it also corresponds to the activity of our clients. According to our strategy and our observations from many years, we are assuming that our clients' activity will be going up, as will the number of clients, so the commission result trends should be tracking these phenomena. I think that's all that I can say. The growth of commission is happening year after year. It might not be double-digit. I don't think they could be, but they do track the level of activity among our clients, and this is the correct situation to be in. At the end of Q4 is back in line with the requirements of the WFD. Right now, none of these indicators is in place. It's at 40%.
It was supposed to be binding next year, but in Q4, as you know, information appeared that the KNF is planning to introduce changes to the algorithm of calculating the WFD indicator, and it'll be a significant change to the tune of 20%. And we are very much hoping that this joint effort from the sector and working with the KNF, hopefully will mean that the WFD, which is the long-term financing indicator, will be adjusted, and we certainly meet these new requirements. At the 40% level, according to the old definition, was something we were supposed to meet by 2026, and now, because of the adjustments, I don't think that level will be needed anymore.
But this long-term financing indicator, the WFD, will remain important from the point of view of the mortgage portfolio, but it won't be as difficult to reach as it used to be according to the older definition.
What is the decision, what is the ruling you are expecting? What ruling are you expecting from the Court of Justice when it comes to WIBOR?
According to what has been announced, we are expecting to have a very positive... The Advocate General's announcement leads us to believe that the result will be positive for us. The sector and the regulators have been emphasizing that WIBOR is an index that meets all the regulatory requirements, and this is also in line with the Advocate General's preliminary opinion.
There is one more question from the internet I will answer. What about the outstanding shares of Bank Śląski? My answer is, this is a question you need to ask in Amsterdam, not here, because it's about ING Group BV. Thank you very much for joining the conference, and goodbye.