ABN AMRO Bank N.V. (ABN.AS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for the ABN AMRO Capital Markets Day and the presentation of our new strategic plan and our financial targets. My name is John Heijning, Head of Investor Relations. Our presentation today is a hybrid one, and we are pleased to welcome those of you with us in person in our own offices here in Amsterdam as well as everyone joining us online. Our agenda will last approximately 3 hours in total. We will start with an overview of our new strategy from our CEO, Marguerite Berard. We will then have 3 presentations from our Chief Commercial Officers responsible for our client units: Personal and Business Banking presented by Andri Frethil; Wealth Management presented by Choy van der Hof; and Corporate Banking presented by Dan Dorner. We will then take a short break, after which our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager, will take you through our financials in more detail. We will finish with a Q&A session. Our aim is to finish the event by 5:00 p.m. But now it's my great pleasure to introduce Marguerite to the stage to present our new strategy. Marguerite?

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our Capital Markets Day today. A warm welcome to those of you in the room as well as everyone online. I'm here with my team, and we are very pleased to present our 2028 strategy. I am going to give you an overview. Henri, Choy and Dan will then explain how this will be deployed across our 3 client units before [indiscernible] dives deeper into the financials. Our strategy is made of 3 priorities: grow profitably, rightsize our cost base and optimize capital allocation. These priorities build on the decisive actions we have already taken in 2025. These include our intended acquisition of NIBC, cost steering that has reduced FTEs by over 1,000, over EUR 7 billion of risk-weighted asset improvements and shareholder distributions totaling EUR 1.4 billion. This progress gives me confidence in ABN AMRO's potential and our ability to fully unlock it. The execution of our new strategy will be supported by 4 key enablers: our technology and data leadership, our risk management strength, people where we are building a high-performing workforce, and our commercially focused sustainability approach. By focusing on our 2028 strategic priorities, we will deliver our 5 financial targets. By 2028, we will generate a return on equity of at least 12%, up from 9.5% today. And we will have a cost/income ratio of 55% or less, down from more than 60%. Our plan is much more than a cost story. We will grow profitably and expect to generate income of over EUR 10 billion by 2028 from both organic growth and our recent acquisitions. We will also decrease the amount of capital allocated to our corporate bank from around 58% today to around 50%. Finally, we are targeting a CET1 ratio above 13.75% and expect a shareholder payout of up to 100% of capital generated over '26-'28 period. These targets are ambitious and achievable. The targets we are presenting today will be delivered, thanks to levers within our control. Our financial trajectory is grounded in robust assumptions and business cases that we have developed internally as a leadership team. Although our focus is on the coming 3 years, these 3 strategic priorities are fully aligned with our 5 long-term ambitions. We will strengthen our position in the Dutch retail market. We will become a top 5 private bank in Europe. We support family wealth and businesses. We will drive growth from European transitions, and we will sustain our global top 3 position in clearing. Everything we present today, everything we have done in the past 6 months and everything we will do in the coming years ties back to these ambitions. Consistency and discipline are nonnegotiables for me. If a strategic action does not align with our ambitions, we will not do it. Our new strategy builds on our core strengths. We have 200 years of banking heritage and trust. The ABN AMRO brand is recognized as one of the strongest in the industry. This level of longevity is only possible through a relentless commitment to adaptation and innovation. Today, our industry-leading technology and digital capabilities allow us to serve over 5 million customers from just 26 branches, always with a premium touch that we are known for. Through our digital challenger brands, we are reaching younger generations. One example is our payment business, [indiscernible], now used by 10 million customers. It is even a word in the Dutch dictionary. When it comes to clients, we have a robust foothold in the most valuable market segments. We have 1 million affluent clients and a leading Northwest European franchise in wealth management. This is where all banks want to be. In Corporate Banking, we also draw on transition expertise in key sectors, including energy, mobility, digital and defense. These are the key transitions in Europe for which we are ideally positioned across the continent. And we have a global leadership in clearing. Finally, after another year with 0 cost of risk, we have one of the strongest balance sheets in the European banking space. All this creates a powerful growth platform. The core of this platform is our 3 client units. Each one is powerful in its own right, but the beauty of our model is that together, they are much more than the sum of the parts. These businesses are highly complementary, and there is potential for greater collaboration to generate growth. Between Personal and Business Banking and Wealth Management, we can upstream more clients to higher-value segments, capture next-generation clients and better leverage shared platforms and digital capabilities. Between Wealth Management and Corporate Banking, our focus is on serving family businesses and entrepreneurs, driving client acquisition and increasing cross-selling. Dual relationships like these mean higher client satisfaction, increased client loyalty, higher retention rates and longer customer life cycles. I also want to mention the strength of our core Dutch markets, 1 of only 7 AAA-rated countries in Europe. As a banker from France, I can tell you this is a very comfortable position. The Dutch economy has consistently outperformed the EU since the pandemic and is expected to continue to do so. ABN AMRO has almost 1/5 of Dutch mortgages, and our intended acquisition of NIBC strengthens this position. We are also the undisputed market leader in wealth and have leading positions with SMEs and corporate clients. We also have an opportunity to capitalize on wider market trends and macro tailwinds from the great intergenerational wealth transfer, increased defense and infrastructure investments in Europe, the commercial ESG opportunity as well as a technological revolution. When it comes to technology in banking, we are embracing AI to improve client services and reduce costs. A future where our clients' AI agents interact with the bank's AI agents is years rather than decades away. These are all exciting opportunities for ABN AMRO. When I came on board earlier this year, my first priority was to take a close look at the bank. I also held a reverse roadshow to hear directly from our investors. It was clear that we needed to take action on cost and capital. I heard you, I agree with you, and this is what you will see in our plan. On this slide, you can see the progress of our financial metrics since 2021. But we are still behind others, and there is a significant opportunity to go much further than where we are today. One of these areas is costs. Quarter-by-quarter, we are seeing the first results of our 2025 cost steering efforts. We have reduced our headcount by over 1,000 FTEs, thanks to tighter hiring controls. We have also significantly cut on our consultancy spend. Over the past years, many regulatory programs and projects have required attention. They are now nearing completion. There is more to do, and this is why rightsizing our cost base is one of the strategic priorities for this plan. This will ensure we are competitive, faster and can invest in growth areas. We are also at a turning point on capital. The increase in our risk-weighted assets since 2021 has been a topic for many of you. In 2025, we first stabilized and then started to reduce our risk-weighted assets. We did this by solving data issues and through active portfolio steering. These efforts have resulted in a EUR 7 billion reduction so far this year. We have made some difficult decisions, whether that is selling lower returning activities like our stake in French life insurance business, MufriesV, or winding down our international asset-based finance activities. We have also finalized the standardization of our model landscape, and we are in the Basel IV era. Again, there is more to do to optimize capital allocation, particularly at our Corporate Bank, and Dan will go into more details later. Finally, given our strong capital ratio and expected capital generation over the next 3 years, we see a clear opportunity to improve returns to shareholders. With these elements in mind, let's move to the details of our new strategy and our 3 priorities for 2028. Let's start with grow profitably. In retail banking, we will grow by strengthening our position in the Dutch market. We are currently #2 in mortgages for new production. Our intended acquisition of NIBC reinforces a strong position. We will build even deeper client relationships. Here, our premium touch is key to delivering real value. In her presentation of PNBB, Henry will show how our digital challenger brands are supporting our longer-term growth by attracting a younger clientele. We will also grow with our Private Bank, which is part of our Wealth Management division. We have a 35% market share in the Netherlands. But for several years, we have been punching below our weight on growth compared to the rest of the market. We see strong potential with entrepreneurs and [indiscernible] clients and improved conversion to higher fee products. We have already increased commercial efforts, thanks to back-office improvements that give our banker much more time to spend with clients. The number of weekly client meetings has doubled this year, and both client satisfaction as measured by our NPS and net new assets have increased. In Q3 alone, net new assets stood at EUR 4.3 billion. In Germany, our focus is on the integration of HAL and consolidating our strong #3 position. By 2028, we will grow client assets to a total of EUR 335 billion, further enhancing our fee income and scale. We will also grow profitably, thanks to our leadership, with family wealth and businesses. I meet at least one client every day, and I can tell you that family-owned businesses are ABN AMRO's sweet spot. This is a great asset because these family-owned businesses are the backbone of the economy in Northwestern Europe. As part of our strategic plan, we will increase the number of dual client relationships, building on the strength of our Wealth Management and Corporate Bank divisions to generate more valuable and longer-term client relationships. We've made progress in this area in recent years, but there is much more to come. We also plan to invest in our clearing business, focusing on our existing clients and further diversifying our businesses. Clearing is an established leader and holds a global top 3 position. For ABN AMRO, clearing is an excellent business that diversifies our activities and provides healthy low-risk returns. Moving to our second priority, rightsizing our cost base. We are transforming our organization from top to bottom to reach a cost/income ratio below 55% in 2028. We are rebalancing our teams towards commercial activities and centralized capabilities. In total, we will reduce the number of FTEs by 5,200 by 2028 compared to 2024, including recent acquisitions. We are fully committed to supporting those affected with a robust social plan, offering financial support and assistance in finding new opportunities. Ferdi will take you through our FTE trajectory, and you will see that while our clear focus is rightsizing, these efforts will create stronger foundations to reallocate resources to growth. We are also radically simplifying our operations, driving efficiency by reducing the number of entities and integrating asset-based finance and our mortgage subsidiary within the main bank. All of these factors are within our control, and we are confident in our ability to deliver against these objectives. Another important lever on cost is technology. ABN AMRO is a top 3 player in Europe when it comes to technology and a recognized AI leader. We are simplifying our IT, reducing the number of applications and increasing the use of APIs and standardized tools. Thanks to our IT investments since 2023, we have successfully decommissioned over 700 applications with a target of 1,000 in 2028. AI is a key driver of efficiency. For us, AI is about the collective positive impact of numerous enhancements to how we operate and best serve our clients. Our client assist voice bot for card subsidiary ICS was referenced as an exemplary use case in a recent Gartner report. We already have 25 high-impact Gen AI use cases in production. These include Leni, an AI assistant that prefills credit proposals by extracting relevant information from uploaded documents, saving around 1/3 of the time spent on each of the file. We have identified more than 100 use cases that will be successfully embedded in our business during the planned horizon. To reiterate, banks that will win in the next phase are those that are embracing AI at scale, and we will be a winner. Moving to capital allocation, where our focus is reallocating capital to activities that generate a higher return on equity. This means redeploying capital from Corporate Banking into Wealth Management and Personal and Business Banking. As a result, we will reduce the RWAs allocated to the Corporate Bank to around 50% of the total in 2028. On the technical side, we are generating RWA relief by improving our underlying data quality, and we expect to implement the SME support factor in the coming quarters. We estimate this RWA optimization could support a EUR 5 billion reduction over the plan horizon. We will also improve client selection and apply strict criteria for new business in the Corporate Bank. This client selection framework will further reduce RWAs by at least EUR 4 billion. By tackling risk-weighted assets in this way, we have a platform to deliver attractive shareholder returns. In terms of our capital framework, our target CET1 ratio is above 13.75%, reflecting the most recent SREP letter we received from the ECB. We commit to returning at least 50% of future net profits in the form of cash dividends and will perform a capital assessment annually with our Q4 results. Given our strong capital ratio and expected capital generation over the plan period, we see a clear opportunity to further improve our payout going forward. In simple terms, there are 4 avenues to deploy capital: organic growth, cost programs, share buybacks and M&A. The first 2, organic growth and restructuring charges are already fully embedded in the plans we are presenting today. Across financial years '26 to '28, we expect to generate capital of at least EUR 7.5 billion, and our aim is to deploy up to 100%. From an M&A perspective, our key focus is on the integration of acquisitions that we have recently closed or announced. Any additional M&A activity would need to meet the same discipline criteria as these transactions and must always create shareholder value. In short, we expect our plan to deliver attractive shareholder returns. We have talked you through our strategic priorities. Let's now look at the 4 enablers that will underpin our success, starting with technology. Like all banks, our technology expenditure has been weighted towards maintenance and regulatory programs. These activities represented around 85% of our tech investment spend in 2024. Thanks to our efforts to simplify our IT landscape, we can now materially reduce the resources allocated to maintenance and noncommercial activities. Under our new plan, our goal is to increase the share allocated to commercial initiatives to more than 40%. As I mentioned earlier, we are one of the front runners on AI in this industry. Our Gen AI chatbot, Ana, already handles 140,000 client conversations per month, allowing our teams to focus on higher-value commercial interactions with our clients. Our technology is also driving rapid innovation and helping us roll out new propositions with a shorter time to market. Our neobank boot was built and rolled out in less than a year, thanks to the efficiency, flexibility and resilience of our technology. Technology is also critical to maintaining high availability and trust, and we work hard to perform above industry standards. Our consistently high [indiscernible] score means that we are in the top 10% in European banking. Next, risk management, which is a core strength of our bank. We will maintain our high-quality balance sheet and are lowering our through-the-cycle cost of risk from 15 to 20 basis points to 10 to 15 basis points. We will continue to focus on our core low-risk Dutch and Northwest European businesses with stable economies, low geopolitical risk and low expected defaults. At the same time, we are diversifying income through global markets and tiering with distinct return hurdles. Next, our people. We are on a path to build a high-performing and future-proof workforce. We are actively investing in critical skills with a focus on data, digital and AI. We are already recognized as a top employer in this area, and our progress means that we have surpassed our peers in what we offer while our efforts are already fueling innovative solutions. We are also strengthening performance management and accountability. This starts at the top, where we are reducing our extended leadership team and have rotated 1 in 6 senior leadership positions. At the same time, our transformation requires tough choices that have consequences for the composition of our workforce. We fully recognize the impact this has and are fully committed to managing this transition with transparency and care. We recently agreed an extension of our social plan until 2029 with our unions, which creates clarity for staff about how we approach the transition and the safety net that they will be provided. In short, our people strategy is a performance strategy, powering growth, innovation and value creation for our clients and our shareholders. Our fourth enabler is sustainability, where we are shifting from broad ambition to more impactful delivery. Sustainability has been part of ABN AMRO's DNA for many years, allowing us to adapt our commitments, including the bank's climate plan and emission targets. We have a EUR 10 billion renewable financing target for 2030. Based on our current trajectory, we expect to reach more than EUR 8 billion by 2028. It's almost time to hand over to my colleagues to take you through how our group priorities will be delivered within each business. Let me quickly share the highlights. First, Personal and Business Banking. Profitable growth will come from leveraging our proven digital capabilities and strengthening our position in core projects. This will be accelerated by NIBC adding scale to our platform with an expected return on capital of 18%. Our #1 priority here is to rightsize our cost base, and we expect a cost/income ratio of below 55%. Having allocated EUR 1 billion of capital to NIBC acquisition, we are targeting a return on equity of over 25% in 2028. In Wealth Management, our priority is profitable growth, and we are targeting an 8% to 10% increase in client assets per year. Key client growth areas will be female and next-gen clients as well as proactive support for entrepreneurs in close cooperation with our corporate bank. On top of this, we have opportunities to improve our cost/income ratio and profitability as we unlock the full synergy potential from the integration of HAL. And finally, Corporate Banking. Here, the priority is profitability. We will reduce the amount of RWAs allocated to CB from EUR 88 billion in 2024 to EUR 78 billion in 2028. Within Corporate Banking, we will drive increased profitability through active portfolio management, focusing on dual clients and growing our clearing business. We are committed to deliver an improved ROE of 11%. In conclusion, we have a clear focus for the next 3 years with our 3 priorities: grow profitably, rightsize our cost base and optimize capital allocation. By growing profitably, we will improve our return on equity to at least 12% in 2028. We will continue to rightsize our cost base, resulting in a cost/income ratio below 55% by 2028. And we will further optimize our capital allocation, assigning more capital to higher ROE businesses. Building on our strengths, I am confident we will achieve these priorities and rise to the bank we want to be. This plan was developed by the leadership team presenting to you this afternoon as well as Carsten Dignner, our Chief Innovation and Technology Officer; as well as Séanaioavanti, our Chief Risk Officer, who are with us today. This team is committed to the bank and fully focused on the delivery of our plan. We have been working together very effectively for the past 6 months and have already made significant progress. I want to tell them that I'm very proud to be part of this team, and I am confident in our ability to build on this momentum and to achieve our 2028 targets. Thank you for your attention. I will now hand over to [indiscernible] to present our retail business.

Thank you, Marguerite. My name is [indiscernible]. As the Chief Commercial Officer for Personal and Business Banking, I am pleased to share with you today how we will contribute to the group's profitable growth while rightsizing our cost base. In short, we will do this by strengthening our position in the Dutch market, accelerated by our intended acquisition of NIBC, driving mortgage deposit and fee growth, enhancing operational efficiencies and optimizing our organizational setup. First, let me introduce Personal and Business Banking as we are today. As a business, we deliver strong capital generation, accounting for around 50% of group profit and an attractive return on equity of over 20%. The digitalization of our service model is a key driver of cost efficiency for our business. As Marguerite said, we now operate with 26 branches and provide a complete digital service to 5 million clients. 97% of our mortgage advisory consultations are via video, and our mobile apps are highly rated. We have a growing market position in the Netherlands with robust footholds in high-value segments like affluent and medical. This is reflected in our 25% market share for high-end mortgages, roughly 6 percentage points higher than our overall mortgage market share. All these elements are reflected in the income we generate from each client, which is 1.7x higher than the industry average, demonstrating that we are attracting the right clients and serving them well. Affluent clients are also a powerful feeder for our Wealth Management business. In fact, around 500 personal banking clients transition to wealth every year, accounting for around EUR 1 billion in assets under management. And 60% of our SME clients also personally bank with us. One reason for this success is our premium touch. I'll say more about this later. Let's first look at our financial performance. We have delivered profitable growth in mortgages. Deposits have also seen steady growth, up 3% per year since 2021, in line with the market. Our average annual fee growth of 11% is higher than the Dutch market, which is at 8%. This double-digit growth comes from various products and is partly driven by the recovery of the credit card market post-COVID. Fee growth has also been supported by the introduction of tailored packages for our business clients and an increase in package pricing for personal clients. Normalized interest rates have resulted in a significant improvement in both our cost-income ratio and return on equity. Our continued digitalization of our service model has also been a supporting factor here. Overall, Personal and Business Banking is a strong capital generation for the group with an ROE of over 20%, and we plan to improve this even further. Let's take a closer look at our strong digital capabilities and premium touch, which are key to our distinctive market position. We are leveraging our digitalized service model to enhance personalization. Digital is our primary customer channel, driving 87% of sales, but is always integrated with easy access to human expertise. We are also expanding our use of gen AI in customer-facing channels. As Marguerite said, our chat bot, Anna, handles nearly 140,000 customer conversations per month, freeing up time for our specially trained and certified advisers to better serve clients that have greater accessibility needs or for higher-value interactions. We also continue to focus on increased personalization and more proactive interactions with 1.3 million customers opting in for real-time budget insights. These digital strengths are highly effective when combined with our premium touch and expertise. In the affluent segment, we have nearly 1 million customers, a figure that is growing by around 50,000 clients per year. For these clients, we have a tailored offering called Preferred Banking. Here, we leverage the bank's deep wealth management expertise and offer direct access to experienced and dedicated advisers. Our customers value this highly as demonstrated by Preferred Banking's high transactional Net Promoter Score. We will also expand this offering with premium debit cards and family-focused wealth transfer solutions, drawing from our expertise from wealth management that Choy will present. Lastly, we are winning clients in focus areas such as SMEs as well as the medical profession, where we have a 35% market share. We have a unique and highly appreciated life cycle proposition for medical professionals. Here, we are supporting these clients from their time and students all the way to retirement with tailored products, services and solutions. Before discussing our 2028 ambitions for Personal and Business Banking, let me highlight how our intended NIBC acquisition strengthens our Dutch retail banking position by adding scale to our core mortgages and deposits business. The acquisition is a unique opportunity to reinforce our top 2 position in the mortgage market, adding EUR 28 billion in high-quality Dutch mortgages, of which half is off balance. These mortgages are mainly residential with very low arrears. NIBC has an attractive originate to manage franchise, which can be used to transfer long-dated fixed interest mortgages to a third party. The NIBC label has a strong presence in rural regions. This is highly complementary to ABN AMRO's portfolio as we typically have stronger positions in the Western urban regions of the Netherlands. There is also a high degree of compatibility in offerings and client profiles, making it an easy fit in our organization and infrastructure. This makes us confident to realize significant cost synergy potential from efficiencies of scale. The fact that NIBC is using the same mortgage administrator simplifies synergy potential. NIBC also has an attractive savings platform, serving over 300,000 clients. A relatively high share of their client base is Affluent, our own focus segment. NIBC has a strong savings client base in the Netherlands, Germany and in Belgium, matching the geographical footprint of [indiscernible], our next-generation investment platform. So we are very happy with this opportunity, providing geographical expansion and broader product offering with low execution risk. Taking this into consideration, now let's move to our 2028 priorities. We will grow profitably by further strengthening our core product positioning with a targeted annual growth rate of between 5% and 6% across both mortgages and deposits. This includes a 2 percentage point benefit from NIBC. In mortgages, we have a #2 position and our market share of new production improved to 19% in the third quarter of 2025. Importantly, we achieved this while maintaining strict price discipline. Almost 75% of new mortgages are sold by the intermediary channel, where we continue to expand our strong network. Our balanced multi-label presence enables us to strategically position ourselves in different market segments. In deposits, we will focus on refreshing our offerings with new products, including short maturity deposits as well as loyalty options such as direct quarterly savings and notice period accounts. We are exploring options to combine the propositions of Books and NIBC, providing us with a challenger platform and potential to differentiate in pricing. Let's stay with our challenger brands and take a look at the future. With the rise of digital native generations, banking is changing. We have 4 complementary brands with proven state-of-the-art technology platforms that capture this next generation of banking clients. With over 10 million users, 60% who are non-ABN AMRO customers, Tikkie demonstrates our proven ability to deliver innovations at scale with a fast time to market. The next step is to further monetize Tikkie through additional services whilst growing its current advertising income and growing the number of paying business clients. [indiscernible], our neobroker, has demonstrated its ability to quickly bring innovative ideas to the market. It was the first in the Benelux to introduce a follow-on public offering opportunity to our retail investors and the first in Europe to offer fractional shares and ETFs. And with our neobank Bot, we went from concept to launch in just 1 year by building a state-of-the-art technology platform with smart connections to the bank. We are excited about the potential to grow but exponentially over the coming years, given the very positive market reaction. Finally, Nuten combines fintech innovation with banking expertise, empowering SME entrepreneurs with fast, simple and personalized financing. Nuten is a leading fully digital fintech lender with a time to cash of less than 24 hours. Since its launch, we have provided more than EUR 1 billion in financing. Almost half of its customers are non-ABN AMRO customers. Our ambition is to increase the portfolio by a factor of 4, accelerated by the migration of existing ABN AMRO clients to our cost-efficient new [indiscernible] platform for SMEs. Thanks to these challenger brands, we will capture a meaningful share of the fast-growing neobanking space. Moving now to costs. We can further enhance cost and operational efficiencies, thanks to our strong digital offering, new technologies like gen AI and increased outsourcing and offshoring. We have already significantly reduced the number of FTEs over the past years. We have rightsized our client-facing staff, thanks to our reduced number of branches and digitalized services, while at the same time, substantially improving our Net Promoter Score. Customer care and operations and anti-money laundering account for a substantial part of the cost base of Personal and Business Banking. We are targeting around 35% FTE reduction in these areas by 2028 through efficiencies with operational management and gen AI as well as offshoring. With a growing number of chatbot conversations now enabled with gen AI as well as continuous digitalization of our high-volume processes, we see a significant decrease in call volumes. A great example of an impactful gen AI application can be found in anti-money laundering, where gen AI now supports our analysts with transaction reviews and client outreach questions. Analysts are also increasingly moving from creating to reviewing case narratives and risk reports when gen AI tools are doing the heavy lifting. We can achieve additional operational efficiency through outsourcing as well as by simplifying our organizational structure. Let's take a closer look at the opportunities on the next slide. We have already made some clear choices to simplify our organization and optimize the setup of our subsidiaries. As highlighted by Marguerite, all these projects are substantially within our control, giving us confidence in our ability to successfully deliver them and release the associated cost benefit. We have announced that we will rationalize our mortgage brand offering and integrate the mortgage group into the bank. The discontinuation of Moneyou will allow room to include the strong NIBC mortgage label into our core labels next to ABN AMRO and [indiscernible]. The integration of the mortgages group into the bank will make our organization simpler and will reduce costs. For other subsidiaries, we are making clear choices to improve operating performance. As announced this morning, we will sell our personal loan portfolio to Rabobank, and we'll continue to offer this product to our clients via a strategic partnership with them. For our credit card business, we are investigating outsourcing with specialized partners, reducing costs whilst improving customer service and innovation. In conclusion, we are strengthening our position in Dutch retail banking while rightsizing our cost base. We are very well positioned to do this, thanks to our digital capabilities and premium touch offering. We are targeting annual growth in mortgages and deposits of 5% to 6%, and we aim to realize this while further rightsizing our cost base, delivering a cost/income ratio of below 55% in 2028. This will be achieved by leveraging technology to further automate our own processes, while at the same time, we are improving the performance of our subsidiaries by making clear choices. The NIBC acquisition and the optimization of the setup of subsidiaries will further improve our cost/income ratio. In terms of our capital allocation, the group will benefit from growth in mortgages with low RWA density. The acquisition of NIBC allocates around EUR 1 billion of capital to Personal and Business Banking. All combined, we expect to deliver a return on equity of above 25%. Thank you. I will now hand over to Choy to talk about Wealth Management and look forward to take your questions later.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Annie. My name is Choy van der Hooft, and I'm responsible for Wealth Management within ABN AMRO. I'm pleased to share our plans and explain how we're going to grow profitably by increasing our client assets while bringing our cost-income ratio down. We will do this by delivering premium propositions in valuable client segments, accelerating commercially supported by digital solutions and by optimizing our operating model and investment value chain. ABN AMRO supports clients through their entire personal and business life cycle. We have supported family wealth and businesses for over 200 years, leveraging our own strength and those of the wider group. We leverage corporate banking capabilities like lending and advisory and personal banking's digital capabilities to offer a seamless experience. We are a full-service private bank for wealthy individuals, institutions and entrepreneurs, serving them with a holistic approach and a premium touch. Clients appreciate what we do, and this is reflected in our positive Net Promoter Scores, which have risen since 2021, '22 across all markets. We serve 150,000 clients across the region. And as Marguerite said, [indiscernible] is a clear market leader in the Netherlands with a market share of around 35% and EUR 155 billion in assets under management. In Germany, we have added significant scale with the acquisition of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe, or HAL, putting us in the top 3. In France, we hold a strong niche. Our entrepreneur and Antprisa offering brings together commercial and private banking, supported by our expertise in wealth solutions and family office services. In Belgium, we also have a niche position. In this market, we launched our entrepreneur and [indiscernible] proposition, introduced our ABN AMRO M. Pearson brand and rolled out corporate finance for family-owned businesses. For both France and Belgium, we have increased our commercial presence in underserved regions, focusing on areas outside of Paris, in France and regions around Brussels. Since 2021, we have grown client assets by 4% a year to reach EUR 239 billion in 2024. Strategically, we have sharpened our positioning by divesting our life insurance business in France and reinvesting in key growth areas. We have harmonized and simplified our products, processes and IT to become more efficient, including our KYC processes, CRM landscape and investment engine. These efforts combined with NII tailwinds have reduced our cost income to below 70% in 2024. With this strong foundation, we are well positioned for profitable growth and have clear 2028 ambitions that contribute to our long-term vision to become a top 5 European private bank. Let's take a closer look at our 2028 plan, starting with grow profitably. With an estimated EUR 3.5 trillion in wealth transferring in Europe by 2030, there is a massive opportunity to reinforce our position, and we are proactively targeting our next generation. In 2024 alone, around EUR 3 billion in assets of our clients was transferred, and we successfully retained 90%, well above industry benchmarks. Our proactive NextGen approach helps us to not only retain, but also to originate new client assets. To share a recent example, our proactive NextGen approach helped us to capture EUR 400 million in client assets from our clients that sold a majority shareholding. They trusted us with this mandate because of the intergenerational relationship we have built up, and because we always engage with the client on their long-term plans. To attract the next generation, we are rejuvenating our product range. We are personalizing investment solutions, providing clients with thematic strategies in areas like technology and health care while rolling out digital assets. We are also diversifying our products. This includes lowering of threshold for private markets and introducing alternative investment asset classes to our discretionary mandates, enabling clients to benefit from asset diversification. HAL complements us here, thanks to their private markets offering and thematic strategies, which leverage for our clients. Another area of focus is to grow with our female clients. Here, we are training bankers to better recognize their specific needs, and we are offering access to our investments and wealth planning expertise via knowledge building events. We are seeing a strong demand in these areas across all our markets. We are also increasing our focus on entrepreneurs. We have a strong track record together with the corporate banking, our so-called dual client relationships. We typically see a higher client loyalty on the corporate side for dual client relationships. On average, these clients have 65% of their total corporate banking products with us compared to 50% for mono clients. On the Wealth Management side, we see client loyalty as well. We earn 60% more on these clients versus mono relationships. Even though we are strong, there is more to win, and this is our focus. In the Netherlands, we are strengthening our collaboration with corporate banking to deliver more value to our clients. The same applies the other way around, facilitating wealth management clients with their business goals. To give you an example, based on our strong relationship with an ultra-high net worth client, we were able to secure a corporate finance mandate for a strategic partnership with a private equity player as well as new wealth management assets. In terms of our markets, in Germany, we are focused on cross-selling and originating new business. We are capitalizing on the client base, commercial teams and offerings that HAL bring to us. In Belgium, we have also improved our offering and positioning, while France's strong expertise and regional expansion will contribute to organic growth. Delivering growth by targeting these valuable client segments will translate into annual net new assets growth of EUR 5 billion to EUR 7 billion in the coming years. Targeting various segments is not the full story. We are also enhancing our commercial effectiveness. We know our clients appreciate our proactive approach, backed by the right expertise and delivered with a premium touch. Clients want to feel special in every interaction, something we consistently ensure. This is reflected in our improving Net Promoter Score of up 14% over the past 4 years. With this strong foundation, we are enhancing our effectiveness, setting our front office up for success. We have already taken the first steps with our net new assets boost campaign, which has attracted deposits into the bank that can be converted into investments. Our campaign has been successful, as Marguerite said, driving EUR 4.3 billion in net new assets year-to-date. And typically, we see a conversion of cash inflows into investments within 6 months. Zooming in on Germany. Here, we are focused on capturing the upside from HAL, expanding our network to 17 locations and over 200 advisers. Growth will also be powered by investing in our digital capabilities. Managing a portfolio today requires constant monitoring, proactive client engagement and consideration of the clients' overall financial situation. Therefore, we will commercially empower our front office, thanks to the rollout of holistic financial planning tools across all markets. By aggregating their positions across all banks, this tool makes it easier to advise all clients across all their positions, leading to a significant productivity improvement. To improve product sales, we are making our core deposits and investments offer more attractive. We will do this by rolling out new products and reducing the cost of existing ones for clients. We are also leveraging AI to free up commercial time and provide real-time insights across all front office functions so we can reach more clients more regularly. By delivering in these areas, we expect our Wealth Management assets to grow by 8% to 10% per year to reach over EUR 335 billion by 2028. Having spent time on profitable growth, now let me move to cost discipline. We will improve our cost-income ratio by growing our income while keeping costs stable. Stable costs mean that we will absorb the impact of cost inflation. To further simplify our operating model, we will optimize control frameworks and minimize duplications between head office and the local unit functions. We will make our investment value chain more efficient from asset allocation, fund structuring to trade execution. This will enable us to customize our client offering and capture a higher share of wallet by internalizing fees and increasing operational efficiency. Another priority for us is the integration of HAL, where we are targeting at least EUR 60 million of cost synergies by 2028. We will move to a single operating model across commercial and noncommercial functions. And HAL will be migrated to ABN AMRO platforms, resulting in a decommissioning of more than 40% of current applications in Germany. Targeting income growth while maintaining stable costs, we expect to realize a cost-income ratio of below 60% by 2028. In conclusion, for Wealth Management, our goal is profitable growth in all markets, supporting our long-term ambition of becoming a top 5 European private bank. We are improving commercial effectiveness and proactively targeting valuable client segments to reach over EUR 335 billion in client assets by 2028. We will do this while simplifying our organization and internalizing value generated in investment value chain to keep our costs stable. In focusing on our 2028 objectives, we will deliver a rejuvenated wealth management that has higher client assets, greater efficiency and creates value for both our clients and our group. I will now hand over to Dan, who will talk about corporate banking, and I look forward to answering your questions later.

Thank you, Choy, and I'm truly looking forward to our cooperation in service to our joint clients. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dan Dorner, and I am the Chief Commercial Officer for Corporate Banking. As Marguerite mentioned, corporate banking will be a strong contributor to the strategic objectives and long-term ambitions of ABN AMRO. Our focus will be on disciplined capital allocation and profitable growth. Let's take a closer look. Our corporate bank is built on a strong client franchise with leading product and sector expertise. Today, we served 10,000 mid- to large corporate and institutional clients, predominantly across Northwest Europe. Our client franchise is very much aligned with our long-term ambition of serving and supporting family-owned businesses in our key markets. We are deeply rooted in the Dutch economy, being the main lender to the majority of our clients with a 30% market share for midsized corporates. We are a trusted adviser to our clients on the back of our in-depth sector knowledge. A recent example in energy transition is our leading financial advisory role for [ Tennet ], a major European electricity grid operator. We were the only Dutch bank on this EUR 9.5 billion capital raising. More broadly, we are recognized for the strength of our advisory practice with family-owned businesses and in relation to sector in transitions. We have proven project finance expertise and hold a top 3 position in Europe for energy and digital transitions. Finally, our Financial Markets clearing business holds a top 3 position globally. This slide shows the evolution of corporate banking between 2021 and 2024. We have focused our activities, derisked and also strengthened our origination platform. This enabled us to drive higher NII and fees across our European activities and with clearing globally. We have improved our income generation and remained focused on costs. This led to a decline in cost-to-income ratio. One of our major achievements has been the wind down of our noncore portfolio, reducing risk and focusing our capital and key resources. The success of this project, which I personally led, demonstrates our ability to reallocate capital, make decisions and take our clients and key stakeholders with us. We have also improved our risk management and underwriting criteria, resulting in a solid credit quality with a low cost of risk of just 5 basis points in 2024. All of these actions have laid a strong foundation for the future. Between 2021 and 2024, risk-weighted assets increased significantly, reflecting credit model simplification. RWAs are now at a turning point, which I will address shortly. We are now focused on optimizing our capital and improving our return on equity. These are the key priorities for our 2028 plan. Corporate Banking RWAs peaked at EUR 88 billion in 2024 and are now at a turning point. We have finalized the simplification of our model landscape. This brought stability and predictability to our capital position and gives us a base to optimize our RWAs going forward. We have made a strong start and taken decisive actions in the first 9 months of 2025, reducing RWAs with over EUR 3 billion. We have improved our data quality, reduced exposure to nonstrategic and low-returning segments and actively managed our portfolio. This also includes a risk-sharing agreement with the European Investment Bank Group on a EUR 1 billion portfolio, the largest securitization in [ EIB ] history. Whilst we have taken decisive actions already, there is significant further upside. By 2028, we are targeting a total net RWA reduction of EUR 10 billion. There are two ways by which we will achieve this reduction. Firstly, optimizing risk-weighted assets, where we target an additional EUR 5 billion reduction. We have identified and planned for additional data quality improvements. This will directly enhance our profitability without impacting our income generation. Secondly, we expect a further reduction of EUR 5 billion from portfolio optimization. Our disciplined client selection framework will account for at least EUR 4 billion of this reduction. We will review the profitability of the full client relationship and where we do not see a path to a sustainable profitable level, we will exit the exposure. The balance will come from the continued reduction of RWAs in nonstrategic activities, mainly by refocusing asset-based finance. We also want to grow, and we plan to invest EUR 3 billion RWAs in our clearing business. I will come back to that later. In addition, we are creating room for profitable growth through active portfolio management. We will deploy a consistent originate and distribute strategy with a focus on significant risk transfers, partnerships and portfolio transactions. For example, we are currently finalizing an SRT transaction for our large corporate exposure, and we'll share more details once the transaction is finalized. We are reallocating actively capital to sectors and products where we are competitive, we have the product and structuring expertise, and also we have a proven ability to capture market share. With the capital allocated to corporate banking, we are targeting a return on equity of 11% in 2028, a 2 percentage point increase over 2024. We will reallocate up to EUR 8 billion in RWAs to higher-yielding fee-enhancing and capital-light products and segments, while we will stay aligned with our strategic risk appetite. As the chart on the slide shows, our specialized lending, markets and clearing segments currently account for 40% of Corporate Banking's capital. As a result of the actions we are taking, we expect this to increase to around half by 2028, directly improving our profitability. We will invest in clearing and allocate an additional EUR 3 billion of RWAs to sustain our top 3 global position, capitalizing on growth in the existing client base, and also diversifying towards corporate clients. [ Clearing ] has delivered strong results in recent years and has a derisked product offering with low capital needs. It will continue to be a key driver of our capital-light fee-enhancing profitable growth. Clearing provides our bank with geographical diversification, countercyclical income, further platform synergies and cross-selling opportunities with other client segments. We will also leverage our leading positions in financing Europe's transitions, focusing on key domains such as energy, digital, mobility and defense, as mentioned by Marguerite earlier. We will build on our originate and distribute capabilities and continue to partner with investors. An example is the EUR 1.3 billion digital infrastructure transaction we executed earlier in the year, where the quality of our origination was instrumental to the success of the project. Finally, while we will reduce our overall general lending exposure, we will expand our relationships with family-owned businesses. From my interactions with clients, I see firsthand that dual clients are more loyal, consume more products and provide us with a higher share of their business. For example, we recently closed an advisory transaction and generated EUR 500 million new assets for our Wealth Management franchise. My dialogue with clients is very diverse from engaging with first-generation founders on capital raising, strategic or public market exits, to advising third-generation owners on liquidity and diversifying their family office for passing it on to the next generations. We aim to increase the share of our dual client relationship to 60%. Next to delivering profitable growth, we will continue to focus on operational efficiency. This will support an improvement of at least 3 percentage points in our cost/income ratio by 2028. In terms of optimizing our organization, we'll deliver efficiencies by streamlining our client service model to their specific needs, fully integrating our core asset-based finance product offering and finally, unlocking platform synergies. For instance, we can boost synergies by internalizing flows between Global Markets, Wealth Management and clearing. Examples include creating a single transaction execution desk that serves all our client segments, Personal Business Banking, Wealth Management and Corporate Banking clients. Another opportunity is for [ clearing ] to become the single custodian and clearer for ABN AMRO activities, internalizing revenues and further scaling the platform. We are also future-proofing our cost base by scaling AI and technology with a specific focus on lending journeys and key sales processes. For example, we have rolled out an AI-assisted credit application process that reduces the standard case workload with at least 30%, ensuring we give more attention to complex situations. All of these elements will result in an improved cost-to-income ratio of below 50%. In conclusion, we are a focused corporate bank with a strong client franchise and leading transition, sector and product expertise. Risk-weighted assets for the Corporate Bank have reached a turning point following decisive actions we have taken since mid-2024. We have a tangible plan to reduce RWAs with EUR 10 billion by 2028. We will drive profitability through portfolio management by actively reallocating capital to our institutional offering, sustaining our top 3 position with clearing globally to funding European transitions, and for supporting our family wealth businesses and dual clients. In 2028, our return on equity will increase to 11%, and our cost-to-income ratio will be reduced by at least 3 percentage points. Thank you. I will now hand over to [ John ] and look forward to hearing your questions later.

Thank you, Dan. We're now going to take a 15-minute break, after which we will continue with Ferdi's financial presentation, followed by the Q&A session. We will see you back here at 3:35. [Break]

Welcome back. It's now time to hear from our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager. [ Ferry ], over to you.

Thanks, [ John ], and good afternoon all. And although I know most of you in the audience today, a brief introduction, my name is Ferdinand or, as you've heard [indiscernible] by most [indiscernible], and I'm the CFO of the bank. Marguerite has clearly explained our focus for the next 3 years and our strategic priorities. In the next half hour, I will explain how these priorities support our financial performance and how we will achieve our targets. Let me repeat the 3 strategic priorities that guide our 2028 financial agenda. Growing profitably, rightsizing our cost base and optimizing capital allocation. Our financial target for '28 are clear and actionable. We are confident that we will deliver on these targets, and we are already taking decisive action that is achieving results. First, we are aiming for a return on equity above 12%, and we will achieve this by increasing earnings using capital-light products and optimize the use of the bank's capital. We target a cost/income ratio of under 55% and will reduce total cost by simplifying our organization and leveraging technology to drive efficiency. Disciplined capital allocation will result in EUR 10 billion of RWA reduction in the Corporate Bank, freeing up capital for Personal and Business Banking and Wealth Management. At group level, we are reducing RWAs allocated to corporate banking from around 58% to 50%, and we target a core Tier 1 ratio above [ 13.75% ] and aim to return up to 100% of capital generated in 2026 to 2028 to shareholders. Before I go further in details of our strategic plan, let's look at the macroeconomic assumptions underpinning our 2028 targets. Based on the current outlook of ABN AMRO's Economics Department, we expect annual GDP growth of 1% for the Netherlands. While inflation is trending towards ECB's target level of 2%, it remains slightly above European average. Looking at the other forecast, we see a robust Dutch economy supported by a strong labor market, government spending and a positive outlook for housing. Interest rate forecast reflect this relative stable outlook. Our current expectation is for the ECB to keep the deposit rate at the current level of 2% for the next 3 years. The 5-year swap rate forecast assumes a similar picture. Rates are expected to be stable for the next 2 years and thereafter increase modestly. In summary, all these indicators point towards a benign macro environment for the coming 3 years. Turning to our 2028 priorities, starting with [ grow ] profitably. Our recent acquisitions of HAL and the intended acquisition of NIBC are fully aligned with our strategy and will support future growth. [indiscernible] and [indiscernible] described how these transactions strengthen our core franchise. The positive impact of these transactions demonstrates our disciplined approach to M&A. These acquisitions are expected to generate a return on invested capital of over 15% and around 18%, respectively, and they will add 12% to our earnings per share in today's terms. We have already started, as [indiscernible] mentioned, the integration process of HAL. We have filed for and expect to complete the legal merger in Q2 next year, which will simplify the further integration process. For NIBC, the integration will start after we receive regulatory approval, which is expected in the second half of next year. And as Marguerite already said, our full focus is on successful integration of these transactions. Any potential future M&A must support our strategy, meet our disciplined criteria and create substantial value for shareholders. Moving to our balance sheet. The growth in our mortgage book is expected to remain strong at 5% to 6% a year through to 2028. This reflects our strong current market share, increasing housing stock in the Netherlands, as well as the planned inclusion of NIBC portfolio. Corporate loan growth is expected between 3% to 5%. The disciplined Corporate Banking client selection framework, which Dan talked about, will result in a reduction of client exposures. However, this will be more than offset by growth in European transition sectors and our focus on lending products that generate a higher return. Let me spend a minute on the development of our client deposits. Between 2021 and '24, client deposits were broadly flat. Until the summer of '22, interest rates were negative, and we decided to limit deposit inflows. Because at the time, margins were being eroded by the decision to keep client savings rates at 0 for balances up to EUR 100,000. Today, deposits are central to our growth ambitions. We expect this to increase by 6% to 7% a year through to 2028. [indiscernible] has explained the importance of affluent clients and the role of new products. We also have an interesting opportunity to combine our [indiscernible] broker with NIBC saving products. This will create a cross-border saving and investment platform to tap into additional markets. Within Wealth Management, deposit growth will be key to increasing client assets to at least EUR 335 billion by 2028. As [indiscernible] mentioned, we are targeting 3 valuable client types. Next-generation, female clients and entrepreneurs. And we also have a dedicated focus to convert cash into investment assets, and this links to our fee ambition, which is shown on the next slide. Between 2021 and '24, fee growth was 5% per annum, largely driven by Personal and Business Banking. Going forward, all client units will contribute to fee growth, adding a further 1 to 2 percentage points to growth. Some of the key initiatives driving this are client assets in Wealth Management increasing to at least EUR 335 billion, introduction of tailored payment packages in [ PNBB ] and growing clearing and capital cross-sell opportunities, as Dan mentioned, in Corporate Banking. It is important to note that underlying fee growth will be higher than the 6% to 7% shown as we will book the costs of SRTs as fee expenses. In our plans, we factor in expenses of approximately EUR 10 million to EUR 12 million for every EUR 1 billion of RWA relief, in line with the current market. This translates in an average of around 7% to 8% cost of capital relief. Now moving to interest income. Many of you has asked for additional transparency on NII, and this has been with many of you, a recurring topic at our quarterly releases. We have listened to your feedback and are making changes to our NII disclosure. Going forward, we will report on commercial NII, which corresponds to the total NII of the 3 client units. We will also disclose asset and liability margins every quarter in addition to corresponding volumes. Combined, the asset and liability NII amounts to more than 90% of our total NII. The remainder shown here as other commercial NII is mainly from clearing and interest-related fees. On treasury, we have separated out the predictable result from equity duration and allocated this to the asset margin. In 2025, this amounts to around EUR 500 million, adding around 20 basis points to the asset margin. This leaves some residual NII of up to EUR 200 million, and this is part of the group functions income. This part is more volatile and for example, includes the effects that can occur when client behavior diverges from our assumptions to hedge our liabilities and EUR 160 billion of mortgages. On the basis of these new disclosures, let me now discuss our NII guidance for the next year. For 2026, our guidance for commercial NII, which comprised of assets and liability NII is around EUR 6.4 billion. This guidance excludes the group function results, which, as I said before, can be up to EUR 200 million. So there is potential upside for our total NII. Liability NII will be higher in '26. We also include the full year whole interest income and assume volume growth, as earlier mentioned, for deposits. Asset NII is expected to decrease slightly due to lower mortgage margins, partly offset by volume growth. Other commercial NII is forecasted at similar levels to 2025. So this is between the EUR 350 million and EUR 400 million. This guidance excludes the intended acquisition of NIBC, which generates around EUR 300 million of NII per year. Looking beyond '26, we expect commercial NII to increase, thanks to higher liability margins as well as further growth in our deposit volumes. The liability margin trajectory assumes broadly stable margins, except for current accounts. We don't pay interest on current accounts, and therefore, they are interest rate sensitive as the margin changes in line with the replicating yields. Current accounts on average, represent around 25% of client liabilities. We will continue to project replicating income based on forward rates every quarter. You can find this information in the annex of the CMD presentation from today. Asset NII is expected to remain stable as volume growth for mortgages, as well as corporate loans, is offset mainly by margin pressure on mortgages. As house prices increase and clients pay down on their mortgage, LTVs decline, leading to lower risk premium on our pricing. Another factor is the increased share of NHD mortgages in new production. These protect the client from losses in a for sale. The margin is lower on these mortgages, but so are the capital requirements. Hence, ROE is very healthy. Based on these assumptions, we expect commercial NII of around EUR 7.2 billion in 2028. Clearly, this outcome is dependent on the way interest rates develop and includes around EUR 300 million for NIBC, but excludes any additional NII from group functions. Moving now to rightsizing our cost base. The planned cost savings for '28 are a cornerstone of our long-term financial plan and are crucial to delivering sustainable shareholder value. For the period '24 to '28, we have identified EUR 900 million of cost savings across 4 categories. First, we plan to realize around EUR 200 million of synergies for HAL and NIBC. Second, we will save around EUR 100 million by simplifying and streamlining our IT. This includes decommissioning applications and moving to a more modular setup. And third, we expect to reduce cost by EUR 200 million through commercial optimization. We have already heard numerous examples from my colleagues on cost reductions, but let me give some more context on these. This includes rationalization of corporate banking's client service model and optimizing the investment chain in Wealth Management. We are also changing our organizational structure by reducing the number of legal entities, leading to a more efficient operating model. Finally, we target around EUR 400 million of cost savings from further operational efficiency in the fourth category, mainly within group functions. This includes optimizing end-to-end processes, for example, mentioned already the credit chain, as well as outsourcing opportunities like in our credit card business, ICS, as mentioned by [indiscernible]. We also have concrete plans to further automate and digitize many processes while others may be offshore, mainly in the areas of operations and AML. AI is leading to efficiency gains and is a key enabler of various process optimizations. The possibilities are increasing rapidly, and we see a lot of potential to identify further opportunities down the line. But to be clear, today's cost savings plan does not rely on unproven business cases. To conclude, in total, we target EUR 900 million of cost savings versus 2024 and expect to realize EUR 100 million of that this year. Our detailed plans and progress to date makes me confident we will deliver on these savings. Of course, the cost-saving measures we are announcing today will have an effect on our staff, and we're being transparent about the implications of these changes. If we include HAL and NIBC on a pro forma basis, our starting point is 27,500 FTEs. We expect a total net staff reduction of just over 5,000 with half coming from attrition and the remainder through redundancies. This year, we have already achieved 1/5 of this total, so around 1,000, mainly through our strict hiring discipline Marguerite mentioned. Restructuring provisions are estimated at around EUR 400 million in total to realize this. Our cost-saving programs are carefully planned and phased to maintain organizational stability at all times. This means that restructuring charges will be spread out over time, somewhat higher in the first years and will decline thereafter. We expect to recognize around EUR 40 million of restructuring costs in Q4, taking the total for '25 to around EUR 80 million. Based on these plans, I will now give you cost guidance for '26 and our trajectory towards '28. Next year, we expect total costs of around EUR 5.6 billion. This includes full year cost for HAL, slightly offset by delivery on some initial cost reductions. This excludes potential costs for NIBC as this will depend on timing of closing the transaction. To bridge the cost development from '24 to '28, we start by rebasing the '24 cost base to account for M&A. Inflation adds around EUR 400 million to the overall base over a 4-year period based on an assumption of 2% per year. Given the EUR 900 million of targeted cost savings I've just outlined, this leads to an absolute cost base of around EUR 5.5 billion by '28. In absolute terms, this is a decrease of 5% versus '24. This bridge does not show investments. Our current investment budget is around EUR 600 million per year and will stay around this level. Marguerite highlighted how we are shifting resources from regulatory projects and maintenance to commercial projects. So this will free up capacity to enable our growth initiatives over the forecasted period. Let me now move to our cost/income target. This slide shows the pro forma impact of recent acquisitions before synergies. These are neutral to our cost/income ratio. Combining M&A with the organic growth I have outlined, we expect operating income will surpass the EUR 10 billion in '28. Compared to '24, this corresponds to a CAGR of at least 3%. On cost, I've described how we intend to achieve a cost base of below EUR 5.5 billion by '28, which is a 5% reduction over the plan period. This leads to a positive jaws effect and a cost/income ratio below 55%. The chart shows how important the rightsizing of our cost base is improving our operating leverage. We are providing a lot of detail on how we're going to achieve this in 3 ways. We're showing an absolute cost target, a cost/income target as well as explicit FTE reductions that underpin these features. We have these under our own control, and I'm confident we can deliver on them. For me, it does not stop by just delivering on cost programs, though. Cost discipline is a continuous process and an essential aspect of our corporate culture that will continue well beyond our '28 planning horizon. Now turn to our cost of risk. Our long-term through-the-cycle cost of risk has been lowered to 10 to 15 basis points from 15 to 20 basis points, reflecting our high-quality loan book, as well as prudent risk management. We expect the cost of risk to gradually increase to the lower end of our adjusted through-the-cycle guidance. Our strong balance sheet provides the flexibility for selective risk taking where appropriate, supporting profitable growth whilst continuing taking risk cautiously and consciously within our risk appetite. Moving to return on equity next. This chart shows the improvement at each client unit, cost/income ratio, return on risk-weighted assets and the return on equity. The curve line represents a 12% return on equity. The further to the right of this line, the higher the ROE. The movement shown displays the changes to cost income and margin on RWA for the period '24 to '28. All client units are increasing their ROE towards 28%, improving on both cost efficiency and their return on risk-weighted assets. The improvements in cost income reflect the planned cost savings, as just mentioned. Acquisitions are an important driver as they add scale at limited additional costs once synergies are fully realized. Only whole is included in this chart were shown here. Increasing deposit income, active capital allocation and growth in fee income are key factors that improve the income of RWA. Therefore, Wealth Management and Corporate Banking are showing the largest improvements on this metric. In absolute terms, our retail business maintains the most profitable business, but wealth is closing in. Combined, these improvements lead to a group return on equity of over 12% by 2028. Let me now move to risk-weighted assets. Marguerite explained the significant changes we have made to our model landscape and at end of last year, represent a turning point for the bank. Our RWAs will be much more stable going forward. The full phase-in of the Basel IV floor will not impact us and standardized RWAs are not procyclical in the downturn. Dan has explained how we will reduce RWAs in the Corporate Bank. Stricter capital allocation and portfolio optimization will more than offset the expected organic growth. This reduces the amount of capital used by the Corporate Bank to around 50% of the group's total. So overall, our RWAs are set for a small decline in the coming years. This does not include the potential discontinuation of the Dutch mortgage floor, which will be reviewed by the DNB at the end of 2026. Before I move to our capital framework, I'd like to put the implications of stable RWAs over the coming period in perspective. Looking back at 2022 and '23, we had significant RWA increases due to add-ons mainly related to model simplification as well as the transition to Basel IV. While we maintained a very strong capital position at all times, RWA growth, combined with dividend and share buybacks led to capital depletion. We delayed our '24 capital assessment due to Basel IV implementation and the most recent model simplifications in Q1 this year. However, mid-2024, as you've seen on this graph, was clearly a turning point. RWA increases were limited, bringing to a halt the significant capital consumptions for regulatory RWA growth without any additional top line growth. This enabled us to announce 2 M&A transactions. This is capital well spent as these transactions are clearly shareholder accretive. Once we fully realize the synergies, these acquisitions will add around EUR 500 million to our operating results. Over the coming years, we do not foresee a need to allocate additional capital for RWA-led growth. In fact, we expect a small decline. Let me now turn to our capital framework. We raised our capital target to a minimum level of 13.75%, mainly on the back of a higher [ SREP ] requirement related to interest-only mortgages. Relative to our capital stack, our target works out as a buffer of at least 30 to 35 basis points over our regulatory requirements of 11.4% as of January 2026. This buffer also covers our undisclosed Pillar 2 guidance. The regulatory requirements of 11.4% includes the current high Dutch countercyclical buffer of 2%, which is among the highest in Europe. For the years '26, '27 and '28, we intend to distribute up to 100% of our net profit with at least 50% in the form of a cash dividend. In a scenario where our core Tier 1 ratio remains significantly above 13.75%, additional distributions could be considered subject to regulatory approval. There's no change in the timing of our capital assessment. And as stated by Marguerite, this will be at our Q4 results. Let me give you an overview of our capital dynamics going forward. We are projecting an increase in profitability in combination with lower RWAs. This means we expect very robust net capital generation. Over the next 3 years, this should generate at least EUR 7.5 billion of distributable capital. We are confident that we can distribute most, if not all, of this amount. Of course, any share buyback transaction is subject to regulatory approval. This capital framework underscores our commitment to delivering attractive and sustainable returns to shareholders while maintaining a robust capital position. To conclude, we have clear 2028 targets. We are aiming for ROE above 12%, a cost/income ratio below 55% and a core Tier 1 ratio of at least 13.75% Income is projected to exceed EUR 10 billion by 2028 and Corporate Bank capital allocation will be lowered to around 50%. We are very confident in our ability to achieve these targets and generate attractive returns to shareholders in each year of our plan. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ferd. That concludes the presentation section of today. We will now move to the Q&A part. Marguerite, Arlene, Choy, Dan, Serena and Carsten will join us on stage. Let me, in the meantime, walk you through the logistics. [Operator Instructions]. So I'm pretty confident that we have all the time to answer your questions. Should that not be the case, please know that the IR team will be available to answer all questions in the coming days. Now let's see who wants to have a question. I see a lot of interest. Good. Let's start on the Johan.

It's Johan Ekblom here from UBS. Maybe to start a bit with thinking about the flexibility in your plan, right? I think as analysts, we tend to be maybe skeptical sometimes on top line growth initiatives, et cetera. And I think you made the point that you're committed to delivering on these financial targets in various macroeconomic scenarios. So how much flexibility do you think you have around controlling, I guess, in particular, the cost side if revenues are maybe not what you hope for them to be? And then maybe for you, Marguerite, more kind of longer-term thinking. I mean, I think you made the point a couple of times that you are strong on AI, strong on technology, et cetera. But when we look across Europe, a 55% cost income is certainly not what you'd expect from someone that's an AI leader. How should we think long term? Where do you think a bank with ABN's footprint should be? Or maybe that's for the next business plan, but let us look ahead a bit.

Flexibility. We built a plan, we're confident we can deliver. And as you can see, most of the levers are in our own hands. We focus on cost. We focus on capital steering. We focus on profitable growth. This is about clarity. This is about choices. This is about discipline. So we do not rely on the external environment. If it is benign, all the better, but this is not where the plan comes from. This is self-help. We rely on ourselves. And as Ferdi mentioned, for instance, if the inflation is higher than the 2% we have in our underlying assumptions, we will compensate for that with additional cost savings. So this is something we're very committed to. And I think you got many examples from our colleagues that everything is grounded in strong business cases we have committed to. And we have already started. If you look at the last quarters, we have already decreased or reduced our workforce by 1,000 year-to-date. So we have already started. Same thing with RWAs. We have already started rightsizing our RWAs by EUR 7 billion since the beginning of the year. So this is all already started. Our cost/income ratio, we have a target on our cost income to go below 55%. We come to above -- we come from above 60% today. So this is significant. This is a significant improvement. And right now, we are focused on delivering this by 2028. What will it look like in '29 and '30? It will look better but we are not providing targets for this. We're focused on '28. But yes, the outlook for '29 and '30 for ROE, for cost income is even better than that.

So a lot of questions. Let's go to Giulila here in the front.

Giulia Motto from Morgan Stanley. Two questions from me as well. The first one on the EUR 10 billion of RWA reduction in the Corporate Bank. So how quickly are you planning that? Is that something that is already happening and so we can see it perhaps next year? Or is it more back-end loaded? And is there any revenues that you're losing on the back of this, especially when you talk about selective portfolio decisions? And then the second question is connected because if I put through this minus EUR 10 billion RWAs and all your other assumptions, actually, CBN significantly above 13.75%. So is that the excess that we could assume perhaps goes for further M&A and for your ambition to be a top 5 private bank in Europe?

I will let Dan take your question on the RWAs of -- for the Corporate Bank, but I will answer your question on M&A. We do not have an M&A buffer. As we said right now, we are fully focused on integrating Hull, closing NIBC and making these 2 new opportunities a success for our group. This is our focus right now. So we don't -- do not expect additional M&A right now. And if we explore an additional M&A opportunity, we have outlined very strict and disciplined criteria. And as we said, among this criteria, making sure that these are accretive opportunities for our shareholders will be a key metric. Dan, on RWAs for the Corporate Bank and impact on our revenues.

Sure. So as I mentioned, we have a clear plan to reduce RWAs in Corporate Bank with EUR 10 billion. This is across in the first place, data quality and data sourcing improvements. client selection framework, so really assessing the profitability of our exposure and exiting low-returning segments. And thirdly, refocusing some of our activities, for example, ABF. The data quality, data sourcing improvements are rather in the front of our plan. So we have clear visibility, and we've identified the opportunities there. Our client selection framework will follow the maturity schedule of our portfolio. So it's more evenly spread over time up to 2028. And our ABF repositioning and refocusing is fully on track. The execution plan is already delivering the RWA reduction. On your question regarding loss of revenues, we are deploying an active portfolio management. So we are also reallocating capital in an active way from low-returning exposures to profitable revenues. So in short, our RWA reduction is really grounded and tangible, and we have visibility across our plan up to 2028 on every part of our RWA reduction.

Let's go to front.

Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux. So the first question is on the capital allocation to the commercial bank down to 50%. I was wondering if it's still a big number. I was wondering if there have been debate at the Board level on further reducing that number over time maybe. Are we going to stop here? Or is that a kind of trajectory towards a lower level? So that's the first question. And number two is on capital generation. What would be the timing of the capital distribution will that be every year distributing the excess capital? Will that be mechanical? Or will you take eventually M&A into account? So I want to know if the timing will be relatively front-loaded or backloaded.

So capital allocation to our Corporate Bank, we're moving from 58% of our RWA to 50% in 2028. That does not include clearing. We are really focusing right now on our 2028 target. So we are not providing guidance or targets beyond. We are focusing on that, and we're focusing on profitable growth for Corporate Bank. Capital generation throughout the plan between '26 and '28. We are giving a capital generation target across the plan. We are not providing a yearly target. We are committing to delivering and distributing up to 100% of the capital we're generating, but we're not giving a yearly target. We will proceed every Q4 with our annual results to an assessment on our position. And we -- this is the moment where we -- where we will give you the outcome, yes. But we commit to up to 100% throughout the plan.

Let's move to JP. There's a mic behind you. JP.

Okay. My first question is regarding -- it's a follow-up on Guilia's question. I also get a higher CET1, if I get your numbers. So it will be good to clarify one of your comments further that you said that if capital ratios remain significantly above 13.75%, you will consider additional remuneration. I don't know if you can give us some explain what means significantly above. Regarding that question, you mentioned that you are including SME support factor in your numbers. Can you confirm if you are also including FRTB impact that it was positive, the last update I got. And also on the mortgage floor, I think that's not included, right? Following that question, I guess, if we want to get a CET1 closer to this 14%, should we assume, I don't know, I'm going to try a share buyback in the 4Q of at least EUR 400 million. This is not the time for this question, but let's give that right. And my second question, changing topic is on OpEx, operating expenses. Merit, you just mentioned that you have some levers or some room still if things doesn't go -- don't go as you plan. I don't know if you could give us some more color on the anti-money laundering. There's been a lot of discussion on this one. One of your slides, you mentioned that you plan to reduce by around 35% I don't know if you could give us the standing point today, how much do you spend in AML? How many FTEs? And what could be the ending point of that item?

Okay. First, Ferdi on our CET1. I will let also Henri take your question on anti-money laundering. But I just want first to tell you that there is one thing we don't compromise with is that we are fully committed to doing our job and doing it right, and this is part of our role in society. So our first priority when it comes to detecting financial crime is doing our job and doing it right. This being said, we also know how we can be more productive, and Henri will get back to that. But Ferdi, on CET1.

Yes. On CET1, Number one, yes, if you look at Q3 pro forma, our core Tier 1 14.8%. You need to take into account for the second half of next year, the impact of our intended acquisition of NRBC of around 70 basis points. So that will bring the overall everything staying equal, core Tier 1 ratio back to 14.1%. Yes, in our capital framework, if there is over a longer period, a significant gap between our targets and where we end up, we may consider nonordinary distributions. But for the plan we're presenting here today, we do not foresee to apply for a payout above 100%. Your second question was on the SME support factor. Yes, Marguerite already mentioned at the start as well that we expect the part of the benefits already being realized in the next few quarters. So the total will be around EUR 2 billion to EUR 3 billion. So we expect in the next few quarters, maybe EUR 1 billion or slightly above to capture that benefit already. FRTB, well, it's clearly discussed amongst many of my colleagues in Europe. There are quite a few banks who are really trying to push for a delay. For us, it's a benefit. You mentioned already the EUR 1 billion, yes, but we expect that this will be realized as of the 1st of January 2027. So in the plan here, there's around EUR 1 billion for the implementation of FRTB. The mortgage floor, as I mentioned, the DNB will review in Q4 next year. That's the macro prudential 458 rule. If this is not continued, this will be around EUR 5 billion of RWA relief, this is not in our forecast. And then your last one was on Q4 expectations. Yes, that is clearly too early. We are back to the same rhythm we always do. We review our capital position during Q4, and we announced the outcome at our Q4 results in February. But as I said before, we look forward. We take into account the EUR 250 million share buyback already done, and we also take into account the 70 basis point impact of NIBC.

Hnri, on AML?

Yes, sure. So I've mentioned that we will reduce the FTEs of the contact center and operations and AML together with some 35%. At the end of Q3 2025, we had 4,600 FTEs in total for the and we expect to bring that down quite substantially. We are for both already in the process of doing that. So in the contact center on the back of reduced call volume in operations also because we have a lot of streamlined things. And the more we digitalize, the more we become straight through and the more we have a lot of efficiency. On the AML part, I think there's a couple of things that I mentioned and some of them are quite impactful. So offshoring is one of them. We have already started offshoring. We already have quite a few people in India. But there's actually a big moment coming up in mid-2027 when there's new regulation. So the new regulation allows us to offshore more than we are allowed under Dutch regulation today. So we are preparing to benefit from that at that moment. So that's where you will see FTEs in the Netherlands decrease, but we will move many of them to India. And also, we see the effects of Gen AI. So actually, it's really, really nice to see what happened last week. So we implemented a new system for our analysts, which -- with which they can summarize more easily, but also already, for instance, write the reports that they have to send to the financial crime unit in the Netherlands. And what is so interesting about the whole Gen AI development that the team came with the plan end of July. They started building in September, and we now have it live with 30 analysts on technology that didn't even exist 18 months ago. So we see a lot of benefits from Gen AI in the coming time. And also, we see that we are further and further on our route to complete compliance with the rules and regulation, which also means that we have less work there.

Let's see. Still many questions. We'll continue with Farquhar and then we'll go to Tariq after that. And probably we have enough time, so we'll get to all of you. Farquhar, yes.

Firstly, I'm sadly old enough to have seen a few plans from ABN AMRO expecting to take cost back to where it started. So what I'd be interested is really getting a sense of what substantively is new and going to make the difference here in terms of why we should give you credibility on this. In fairness, I can see a much higher tempo, much more granular plan. I hear you on accountability, and it feels like an external perspective has helped here. I'd just like really your view from the coal face given the history. And then secondly, the enterprise and entrepreneur kind of concept isn't entirely new. I think I've seen a few iterations of it. In fairness, it's somewhere I would have thought you should have a right to compete. It's never quite sparked. So I'd like to know again, what's different going to make that work this time. And obviously, it's one of those things that kind of crosses business lines. So I wouldn't mind understanding how you're aligning people on that.

Why are we credible? Because we've already started because everything we've put on the table is documented. There is the business case behind each of the initiatives we've put on the table. We've given you a lot of details. These are all plans that we are committed to. We've worked on this as a team. There was no external consultant to do it. We did it ourselves, and this is a plan that primarily rely on levers in our control. And I think this is the most important part. I will ask Toy, if that's okay, to develop on the E&E and you see she's already very close to Dan, so he can tell you all about dual relationship with our clients.

Yes. On the E&E service model, as we mentioned in our plans, we have a track record in servicing our wealth family-owned business clients. And what we have done actually in the recent years is implemented and rolled out the E&E proposition in all the countries. So in France, we already had a strong footprint in E&E, and we also rolled it out in Germany and in Belgium. And in the Netherlands, we further strengthened our collaboration with the Corporate Bank. So we've been very much working on to making sure we have the right infrastructure in place in order to be able to serve those dual clients even better than we do today. And as we both mentioned in our plans, we are further accelerating on that in increasing the collaboration, but also very much looking into the products, which we can offer towards our clients, giving our clients specifically in these family-owned businesses that carpet treatment so that they see us as one bank and not as 2 separate banks servicing them. Dan?

Just to build on what Toy was saying. First of all, we have a distinctive proposition when it comes to Wealth Management and corporate banking across our key markets. There are 3 distinctive ways in the future that we will drive this. One, we have clearly now set a target to increase the number of dual client relationships. Two, our client selection framework that I mentioned about is also very much assessing the contribution to this target and to profitability, to real profitability, not only from a balance sheet perspective, but also from a fee-enhancing perspective. And thirdly, we will allocate resources here. So we are reallocating capital from lower returning segments, for example, ABF International that Marguerite mentioned, to this accretive portfolio where we believe we can drive profitable growth.

We'll then move to Tarik. [Operator Instructions].

Tarik El Mejjad from Bank of America. Congratulations for this plan, definitely very decisive. I was also one of the old guys at the IPO next door in the room next door, smooth, I would say. So no, I mean, more so 2 questions from my side, please. First, on the corporate bank repositioning. I mean, in the mix shift, you clearly go to a more specialized lending, less general lending. And don't you think there is a risk that you become a bit too targeted or too subscale in some of the businesses because maybe you tell us, I guess, you will be focused on more in specific industries. And so you see a risk of that. And your 11% ROE target, I guess this is unfinished job, and there will be next plan where you take it to a higher level because that's still dilutive to the group ambitions. And last one for you then on the SRTs. How comfortable you are to to actually be active on that product on this optimization, there is a wind of kind of questioning about SRT and how much it contributes to the capital stack, especially if you're distributing 100% payout that could play. And very -- I mean, just to transfer to my questions on NII. So on a positive spin, I think your NII might be a bit cautious. If you can highlight a bit the assumptions, especially on the asset margin compression to understand the reason for that. And you have 5% plus deposit growth. Surely, your hedge portfolio will be expanding. If you can give us some indication on [indiscernible]

So I think that was more than just 2 questions. On CB repositioning and the question of scale, Dan will take your question. There is always the next plan. We are focusing on this one. The target for CB is 11% of ROE by 2028 and the NII and whether or not we're conservative, that will be for you, Ferdie. Dan?

Yes. So first of all, we have a clear tangible plan that is focused on profitability and disciplined capital allocation. We are indeed reallocating capital from general lending to specialized finance markets clearing and dual clients where we believe we can drive profitable growth. We have leading market position. I see plenty of opportunities to grow profitably in our key markets in Northwest Europe and pan-European with the transitions we mentioned. So I believe we have the scale, and we also have the product expertise, for example, in project finance, evidenced by our leading positions in digital and energy, advisory capabilities. So I truly believe that while we are shifting the portfolio for profitability, we will stay aligned with our risk appetite, and we are also creating a focused scale in our key markets. So I'm confident in that. And I'm also confident that while we are managing the capital consumption of Corporate Bank, we are doing that in a very tight manner by improving our profitability to 11% ROE, as Marguerite mentioned. On the SRT question? Yes. On the SRT question, I would like to start by mentioning clearly that we have a well-balanced active portfolio management strategy. And SRTs are not the only instrument at our disposal. We are focusing on partnerships, portfolio transactions, and we have done a thorough assessment of our portfolio of the potential for SRTs in our portfolios. We will only deploy SRTs if there is a clear economic rationale and if that helps us actually to fuel profitable growth and achieve our strategic objectives. So we will have a very tight discipline in deploying active portfolio management for pursuing profitable growth.

NII, are you...

NII, favorite topic. Yes, I think with what we are disclosing today, I think 3 takeaways. Number one, if you compare '26 to '25, you see roughly on commercial NII, an increase of EUR 200 million. Take into account in this EUR 200 million is a delta of roughly EUR 70 million for full year inclusion of Hua AlfaZalampa. If you then go to '28, the EUR 7.2 billion, that's a bridge of EUR 1 billion versus 2025. Also included in there is then the EUR 300 million related to the acquisition of NIBC. Overall, we expect, if you look at asset margin mentioned earlier, specifically, we see this in the mortgage markets. which is clearly a very important driver where 60% of our balance sheet sits. Number one is the introduction of the adjustments if the LTVs goes down and then the risk premium will go down. That's number one on the back book. Number two is also the discount, for example, on mortgage label A and B in terms of sustainability. Number three, what you're also seeing there is a decrease in portfolio of interest-only mortgages. So all these elements and if you combine that with the front book of the state guaranteed mortgages increasing at lower margins, but good ROE over the whole forecasted period, you will see a very slight decline in overall asset margins. So what is the biggest driver over time is clearly the liability side of the balance sheet. we've been very explicit. What is most rate sensitive is your current accounts at roughly 25%. So currently around EUR 55 billion. That will clearly increase if you look at the underlying assumptions of deposit growth. And secondly, it is the equity duration. If you look at the equity duration, I think our forecast indeed, as you say, is prudent. We take into account here that only the rate sensitivity is on the current accounts. And if you look at all deposits where we do pay interest on, the margins will stay relatively stable. So it is forecasted as an allocation out based on the 3-year swap curve and on the back of that, the trajectory is calculated. But you could say under all these assumptions we're providing here today, you can have a qualification that it might be prudent as we stand here today.

Can you hand it to your neighbor, Namita?

Namita Samtani from Barclays. My first question on FTEs. The attrition rate of ABN FTEs are actually more per year than what you have in your plan, just looking at your attrition rate from the annual report. So why not more reliance on the natural attrition rate rather than taking an active restructuring charge today? And my second question is, you mentioned ANA, the chatbot. And I just wondered if you had an estimate of the FTEs that ANA does the job of...

We have on our FTE trajectory, we provide a lot of information on how we're going to do that and at which pace. So we are confident that our natural attrition will help us make this happen. We are also able to accompany redundancies. This is why we have made sure we renewed by anticipation a social plan that covers the coming 3 years up to 2029 so that we can be there also at the sizes of colleagues that will be made redundant and we can provide financial support, and we can also provide advice and be at their side to find other opportunities outside the bank. So we have in terms of HR all the tools at our disposal to make sure that in a very orderly manner, every time there is a reorganization in the bank, and this has already started. You have a fair number of RFAs going on right now in the bank. Every time we do that, we have the full HR tools at our disposal to do that. At the same time, we also make sure we always have the right skills and we upgrade our skills. So every time we feel that for better serving our clients or because we need tech capacities. And this is a plan Carsten, we made with Carsten just to make sure that we would integrate more of these tech capacities and talents in the bank because they are extremely necessary. We make the right choice for the bank because this is -- we think long term. So we rightsize our cost base, but this is about rightsizing right. not doing stupid things, having a short-term view. So this is very important for us. When it comes to Anna, I don't know if -- we don't provide -- we said Anna was handling 140,000 client conversation per month, and we are very proud of this achievement. But we don't provide FTE reductions on the back of that. But I don't know if you want to give Carsten a bit more color on ANA because we're very proud of ANA.

Yes, not only Anna, I think...

We're getting to the full family.

Speaking about AI, I think it has become clear that we are fully embracing AI, and we have left the experimentation phase big time. So we have more than 25 use cases in production that actually provide value as we speak. And we have not only Chatbot ANA, but if you're talking about efficiency alongside that stream, so to say, we have also reduced our call volume by 15%. And I think this is a result of multiple measures, not only our Chatbot ANA, but we are also helping, for instance, our agents actually with auto summarization functionalities to be able to take up to 25% more calls. So this is coming from actually 2 ends. And if you actually would like to sort this out, we didn't even do that ourselves, just the effect of one use case, so to say. But what we have done is we have actually embedded our AI use cases and our projections going forward into our financial plan. that is conservative and fully grounded. Like what Ann just said, in 18 months ago, this technology didn't even exist. We haven't taken any fantasy into account of future technologies popping up. We know what we would like to deliver, and that's what we have embedded in our financial plan.

Good. Let's move to Chris and then after that, no, Chris -- and after that, Delphine.

Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs. So two questions. Maybe just first a follow-up. How should we think about the ROI of those 25 in production use cases on AI? Maybe if not in absolute terms, just how that ROI would compare to alternative uses to the M&A you've already done or to potential shareholder distribution? And then second, on Slide 65, there's the other bucket of EUR 200 million of cost increase. Is there something specific in there? Or should we think of that as headroom to absorb another 1 percentage point or so of inflation?

I will let Carsten and Ferd answer your questions. On the EUR 200 million you're referring to, I would say it's a mixed bag. For instance, we have the cost of our third data center in there. As an example, among others, there is also more heavier levies, tax levies that we have included in there. So it's a mixed bag that less, but yes, several items. Return on investment of our AI cases, and this is going to be a dual [indiscernible]

So we do not really disclose the full ROI of AI cases in particular for every use case. But what I can say in general is that the beauty of the AI cases is that you normally have actually very small teams who can implement AI use cases that have a big lever and a big impact. So when you look at AI use cases in our experience with the more than 25 use cases we have actually brought to production, this has a very nice return on invest and also a quite short amortization period. And what I cannot confirm is what you probably read sometimes from Gartner and other consulting companies and analysts is they are sometimes saying that you have probably 80% of these use cases not bringing any value. We actually start right early with failing fast, and we don't even let them in the further phases of our pipeline. So our 25-plus use cases all bring value, but we don't disclose the particular ROA figure.

Okay. So EUR 200 million.

Look at me, yes, but what can I say, Craig, the only thing I can say, I think AI is an enabler for many of our efficiency initiatives. You've seen that. We forecast a EUR 300 million absolute cost reduction, and we have a restructuring provision of EUR 400 million against it. So in terms of return on investments, about where would we deploy, I think with an enabler of AI, this is by far the best options to compared to all the other ones.

And Ferd, on the EUR 200 million we were describing what I call it a mixed bag. Do you want to?

Yes, the EUR 200 million, you're fully right. Number one, you're now here at our headquarters, but we will be moving in '27 to a brand-new home base. that's in there. As already said, the third data center, that's also an additional cost versus where we stand today. [indiscernible] levies, if you look at the significant growth we expect in deposits, that also means the deposit guarantee scheme, our levies will go up. So exactly, as Mark Reid said, it's a bit of a mixed bag. It's rounded around EUR 200 million.

He says brand-new headquarters, but just to clarify. Homebase is refurbished, [indiscernible].

Fully circular.

It's not brand new, [indiscernible] on the cost.

Our former new.

Exactly. Just to clarify.

So first, and then we'll move to the side of this room with [indiscernible] and then we'll move that way.

Delphine Lee from JPMorgan. So just 2 on my side. The first one is just a follow-up on NII and [indiscernible] question, if that's okay. I'm just wondering because if you look at sort of the bridge between 2026 of EUR 6.4 billion to EUR 7.2 billion in '28, and that includes the EUR 300 million of NIBC. That EUR 500 million just doesn't seem quite a lot considering you have deposit growth, replicating income. You only mentioned the current accounts of EUR 55 billion instead of your overall replicating portfolio. So anything else we're missing or deposit costs or liability margin just seems like it's not recovering that much from 120% or 120 basis points-ish. So if you could just elaborate a little bit on that, that would be great. My second question is on distribution. Just wanted to understand a little bit sort of your thought process around your up to 100%, which potentially could also be above that, considering you have excess capital, you run already comfortably above 14%. So is that dependent on M&A transactions? And just wondering why wouldn't just say 100% given the room you have? And is that a function of how much sort of buffer you want to keep above that 13.75% CET1 ratio?

So Ferdi will answer a question on NII, but I will take the one on distribution. Our commitment is up to 100% over the course of the plan. You're right. We have a very strong capital position. So we're very comfortable with this commitment. I think also Ferdi said that if we were to be in the long run, significantly above our 13.75% CET1 target, we could consider additional distributions. But these distributions that come beyond the profit we generate are subject to regulatory approvals, and they are not part of our plan for the moment. So our commitment is up to 100% distribution of the capital we generate over the course of the plan. And yes, we have a strong capital position. This is one of the strength of the bank. I agree with you. NII...

Yes. Coming back to NII. I said before about the other commercial NII, which is clearing and interest-related fees, we forecast that to remain relatively stable. So that is the EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million. So that's basically flat. If you look at other elements of the around EUR 500 million, we are providing the sensitivity slide of replicating income. There you do see that we've seen the inflection point where from a headwind, it starts to become a small tailwind in the first half of 2026 and then starts increasing afterwards. In our forecast, we assume that margins stay at the same level. So we don't provide any indication what we expect to happen with potential pricing. So the assumption on this, that pricing, that margin on this part stays the same. So if you look at overall deposit margins, we expect that for 2026 over a whole year still be slightly lower than 2025. then it will recover further in 2027. And I would say, if you look towards 2028 at liability margin overall, it will be around 5 basis points higher versus where we are today. So the biggest part clearly is from the replicating portfolio, which is currently around EUR 165 billion, of which 1/3 is in current accounts. And there, you really see the benefit of improving forward rates.

Okay. First to Anke. Third row.

Anke Reingen from RBC. The first is a cheeky half question following up on Delphine's question. What payout ratio do you accrue in the course of the year? And then my real question about execution risk. If I think about my model, and I want to plug in the RWAs and the cost number. So in terms of the RWA, the reduction in the Corporate Bank, how should we think about your level of due diligence by portfolio, how much you can reduce RWAs? Why haven't you done this before? I guess it's because the models were not all reviewed. Have you discussed this with the supervisor and have comfort there? And then on the costs, am I right in assuming you sort of like have a detailed bottom-up plan -- and how much do personnel expenses savings account for the total EUR 900 million?

Execution risk, and this is a broader question, not only you mentioned capital, you mentioned costs. We have grounded every assumption, whether it is about RWA reduction or how we are going to reach our cost targets. Everything is grounded in our plan. Everything has been challenged. I shouldn't even say that, but I even ask internal audits to check each of these business cases to provide. So I mean, I can tell you this is solid. So there is always an execution risk. that we have a conservative risk appetite. So we minimize risk of execution. So this is what we are committed to. On the payout question, I mean, our commitment is that we are -- every year, we -- our payout policy is 50% in dividend. And I think we've also been clear that over the course of the plan, up to 100% of the additional capital we're generating will be -- can be distributed. So this is, I don't know if you want to add anything.

No, the only thing, what do you accrue for in principle, we accrue for dividends. That is 50%. So that will be accrued over the full year, and we always intend to pay out 40% interim dividend at half year. We always do the assessment in Q4 for additional distributions. We keep the option open between share buyback and cash dividend from a tax perspective. And so we don't accrue for that and what we normally do. When we announce at Q4 the outcome of this assessment, we immediately subtracted from our core Tier 1 capital. So we only accrue for 50% of dividend for the year.

I think Jason and Alberto first, Jason?

Jason Kalamboussis from ING. The first question, if I may, for Marguerite. You said become a top 5 European private bank. How do you measure this? What positions are you currently on that basis? How do you get to the top 5 in wealth? And what is the time frame? And the second question for Troy. Looking at the fees growth that you showed on the slide is 2%. I mean, maybe I'm looking at it, it's 1.6%, I think. So I mean, this has been relatively weak over the last 4 years. Could we have more disclosure so that we are better able to assess the chances of having that superior fee growth? Because when we look, you present the client assets, that includes cash and custody, which your peers are not doing. And also when you have a EUR 335 billion, of course, with cash and custody would never -- a lot of things can be possible, whereas it would be nice for us to have this. And when I look also at the inflows, looking backwards, I think it's possible to calculate and I could be wrong, but it looks like most of the inflows have been again, from the custody, which is not where the better profitability is. So again, if you could comment on that and elaborate. And again, it would be great if we can have a split of inflows between custody and what I would call proper net inflows and then also by country, like again, a couple of peers are doing now.

On our ambition to be a top 5 European player when it comes to wealth. Right now, we're in the top 10, closer to the top 5 and to #10 position. So we are confident that based on the full integration of HAL that will kick in full year, we only have half a year in 2025, plus organic growth fully fueled. We have all the engines turned down, so fully fueled also by the synergies we were mentioning between our corporate bank. We are confident that we are on the right trajectory for that. Top 5 European players, this is a long-term ambition. So can we achieve it in 2028 or later? We'll see. But the trajectory is there. And in the meantime, we are committed to growing our client assets up to EUR 335 billion by 2028. This is a CAGR of 8% to 10% for wealth business in the coming years. [indiscernible], more color on the additional question.

Yes. On your questions around fee and the growth we are projecting for the coming years. What we have seen is that in the recent years, we have benefited from the NII tailwind because of that, we saw increased volumes in savings and deposits. But now we expect fee to further grow because we have shown that we are able to migrate savings and deposits more or less average between -- in 6 months' time towards valuable assets, so into investments. You also see this in our ability now with our NNA boost campaign to add and to attract more core NNA towards the bank. And next to that, HAL is also contributing. So HA gives an overall growth that helps us to reach the 8% to 10% assets. If you look at the NNA growth, it's focused on core NNA, so excluding custody. And the 8% to 10%, if we take -- if we exclude Hull, we have a growth of 5% to 7%. So including HA, we will reach this ambition level. And custody has always been part of our business. So if it comes by, we will take the opportunity, but it's more volatile and it has low margins. So that's how we look into this business. We're very much focused on the core NNA growth.

And next question for Alberto, and then we'll move to that side of the room.

Alberto Artoni from Intesa Sanpaolo. So I have 2. The first on capital, why did you set your target at 13.75%. Optically, it looks a bit higher compared to peers. It's just because you want to be very well capitalized? Or do you expect regulatory requirement to change over the years? And secondly, on cost, could you provide a little bit more color on how the journey will look like in terms of what -- in '26, '27, what things are going to look like, both in terms of cost saves and restructuring charges?

CET1 ratio of above 13.75%. Our previous target was 13.5% on the back of the letter we received, as you know, regarding our interest-only mortgages, our P2R requirements have increased. We take that into account. And so that translates into a CET1 target of above 13.75%. You're right. We are well capitalized and very comfortable with our capital situation. On cost, I think we are giving -- we gave already some lights on our trajectory. But Ferdi, if you want to be a bit more specific?

Yes. I think if you look at the trajectory, we're quite explicit. We're basically providing you with the cost/income target, but also with the cost/income target, and we intend to do that on a rolling 12-month basis. So now we have provided a cost target for 2026. So expecting 2026, we're going to provide an absolute cost target for 2027. Of course, if you look at the plans and the restructuring, the restructuring is more spread over time of the mentioned in total up to EUR 400 million. So you will see some more restructuring in the earlier years and then the charges will start to come down in the later years. So yes, also because the specific underlying restructurings will take time to be implemented. There will always be a tilt of the cost trajectory towards the second part of our financial plan as we presented today.

Okay. Then I see first, Matthew.

Matt Clark, Mediobanca here. Firstly, coming back to the payout ratio and your guidance of at least 50% and up to 100% payout. Am I right to be thinking that this is the plan from the 1st of January 2026 and in terms of assessing a potential payout at the fourth quarter, we should kind of disregard that future looking up to 100% steer. So that's the first question. Second question is on the EUR 400 million restructuring charges you just mentioned. I mean, any more color in terms of the distribution of that across the years ahead? I know you said it was front-loaded would be helpful. But also, can you just confirm that those restructuring charges include the integration costs for HAL and NIBC as well? Or should we add those on top? Because I think you've made a distinction between integration and restructuring charges in the past.

Okay. Our restructuring charges are fully loaded. So that includes integration of HAL and NIBC. So this is a fully loaded figure, just to make clear. We already shared that we have already taken EUR 40 million in terms of restructuring charges. This year, there will be another EUR 40 million at Q4. The rest will be more spread out over the course of the plan. We're not giving more color on that yet. And in terms of our capital framework and assessment for Q4, Fredi?

Yes, at Q4, I mean, what we provide here today, the EUR 7 billion or above EUR 7.5 billion, that is really for the years '26, '27, '28. Our assessment for Q4 has been quite explicit, we will take into account forward-looking. So that includes the acquisition of Hull, and it also includes the EUR 250 million we've already done. So for the Q4 assessment, that is over 2025. So our assessment and potential payment of 2025 is not included in the EUR 7.5 billion we're providing here today because that is for the 3 years after.

Meant acquisition of NIBC that amounts for...

And can I just follow up on that? You said that your assessment for the end of 2025 includes the EUR 250 million that you've already done. So should we take from that, that you think of that EUR 250 million as being an interim payout of 2025 profits and not as I think sometimes gets described a delayed payout of 2024 profits?

Yes, it was a delayed assessment we've done after Q1 last year for the implementation of Basel IV and transition to standardized models. But it's clearly -- if you look at payout, it's paid out of 2025 fiscal profits. So you should see it in any sort of payout calculation. It is over 2025. So taking that into account, it's clear that's how you should assess our evaluation at Q4.

Then we're moving to our last question.

Shrey Srivastava from Citigroup. I just want to come back to costs. So you've obviously given an absolute cost target. And -- but at the divisional level, you've sort of only given cost/income ratio target. So if we were to look at the sort of EUR 900 million cost saves you target by division, where would we sort of see the brunt of these impacts? I know a lot of it from what you said is centered around the back office. If you could just have a bit more detail around that.

So you had indeed a cost/income ratio for each of our divisions, but we are a bank that also has central functions. So all -- we manage our cost base on a group-wide approach. So the way we steer is that we are putting more efforts on central functions. It's true. We are putting more effort on that in order to redeploy resources, budget, IT resources, capital and so on to the businesses. So this is -- we have a group-wide effort on our cost base, EUR 900 million over the course of the plan, everything grounded in a business case, but more effort. Henri gave some highlights on what it meant for operations and DFC, for instance. So more effort on central and supporting functions. Since this is our last question, let me First, thank you very much for your attention this afternoon, for your questions, for the interest you take in ABN AMRO. As you've understood, this is a plan that's grounded in 3 short-term priorities: profitable growth, rightsizing our cost base and steering on capital. We have built this plan relying on our own strengths, on our own resources to grow our bank and build our own future. Thank you very much again for your attention, and we wish you a very good afternoon.