Cembra Money Bank AG (CMBN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

July 24, 2024

SIX Swiss Exchange CH Financials Consumer Finance earnings 42 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cembra Half Year 2024 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Holger Laubenthal, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#2

Yes. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Great to be here, and thank you for joining us for the presentation of the first half 2024 results. I'm here with our CFO, Pascal Perritaz; our Chief Risk Officer, Volker Gloe. And as usual, we'll walk you through the presentation and then look forward to taking your questions. Let me start with our central messages. So look, overall, we're pleased with the first half results. Both income and revenue came in strong at plus 4%, plus 6% increase, respectively. That's, of course, on the back of repricing activity that we continue, better fee income and selective growth measures across the portfolio. It's also a testament that the new segment-based organization, which we introduced at the beginning of the year in lending with personal loans and auto and payments with Cards and buy now pay later is in place, operational delivering. We're very excited about the rollout of the leading platform. Our core banking platform upgrades are complex. And so this really is a key milestone in our transformation that will deliver sustained scalability and efficiencies going forward. Our cost-income ratio has improved, and we have good visibility here as well on the 2026 targets, contribution here was from growth as well as efficiency and streamlining of the organization, we're seeing good productivity in progress across the operations. Loss provisions came in line with the guidance as we continue to manage for portfolio risk return balance across the book. Also feeling good about the funding mix continues to be well diversified. We successfully launched our digital retail savings product, very good response from the market, more on that later. And as said, such overall, we're also confirming our midterm targets and dividend outlook. Let me talk a bit about the first half performance in some more detail. Good start of the year, right? Net income, up 4% at CHF 78.3 million, revenues up 6%, particularly strong contribution from payments and cards. Net financing receivables up 2%, with growth coming from all products and loss performance at 1%, in line with the guidance. Overall, delivering 12.7% ROE and Tier 1 capital at 17.1% for the first half. In terms of the products and the markets we operate in, in lending with personal loans, we continued very selective growth. We talked to you about this at the beginning of the year. That's going well for us. Clearly, we continued strong focus on repricing and managing the price volume loss equation as we laid out previously. We're pleased with the 2% growth in net finance receivables in auto, like the business, strong performance in terms of relationships to distribution continued here as well focused on pricing. And of course, the full rollout of our leading platform through all auto dealers. Payments, particularly in cards are very strong first half. Net financing receivables up 3%, net revenue up 15%. Clearly a signal that our strategy in terms of customer retention post migration has been working out. And overall, this leading to being well ahead of the commitments we shared for the payments business with you in February. We -- with our app, we expanded. We now have over 420,000 customers live using the app. Buy now pay later, we completed the legal entity merger and really a strong focus here on profitable partnerships. While volumes are down, fees came in flat at CHF 19 million. And with the TWINT rollouts with the ability to tap into 5 million users with merging partners that came live during the first half, we have good prospects for growth here as well. So overall, good performance both in lending was very deliberate and selective growth and strong net revenue growth in payments. Let me hand over here to Pascal directly to go into details on the financial section.

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#3

Thank you, Holger, and good morning, everyone. The 4% increase in net income to CHF 78.3 million is due to a strong 6% increase in net revenue, partially offset though by the anticipated post-COVID normalization of the provisions for losses. Let me explain in more detail. The 6% increase in net revenue is a result of the repricing measures we started 2 years ago, leading to an 18% increase in interest income across our business for the first 6 months of the year. This was partially offset by the increase in interest expense following the continued holding of the funding portfolio. The commission and fees income continued to grow by 2%. This is due to the credit card as a result of focus on profitable customer segments. The buy now pay later business remained flat in the first half due to portfolio consolidation post integrations with increased focus on profitable and strategic partnerships. As anticipated, the loss ratio continued to normalize in the reporting period and came in at 1%, in line with the midterm target and representing a slight increase compared to the loss rate of 0.9% in the second half of last year. Volker will provide more details in a few minutes. The cost/income ratio declined by 3 percentage points compared to H1 2023. We realized cost savings as part of our strategic plan, offset by restructuring costs as we continue to invest in our strategies. I will detail operational experience also in a few minutes. Let me now explain the development of the NIM, the net interest margin. With the results publication of the full year 2023 in February 2024, we said that Q4 2023 was a turning point, with the increase in interest expense fully offset by additional interest income for the first time. You can see on this page with the work what happens in H1 2024. First, in H1 2023, the net revenue has been largely flat. In H1 2024, it was plus 6% increase. The CHF 36 million increase in interest income was able to fully offset the CHF 23 million increase in interest expense. This contributed to the expected increase of the net interest margin. The higher interest income in our product was driven by the repricing measures as well as other interest income from cash and investment securities. We confirm our guidance from February that we expect the net interest margin to continue to rebound to about 5.5% in the midterm 2025, 2026, latest. On the net financing receivables and yield development, Cembra continued to grow all business areas, resulting in a 2% increase of financing receivables net to CHF 6.8 billion. In the current market economic environment, we are pleased with the outcome of our selective growth in the lending and payment businesses. In the lower part of this chart, you can see the development of the yield in personal loans, the yield increased to 7.2% from 6.6%, reflecting the continued decisive repricing measures. In auto, improvements from 4.7% to 5.3%, and in the credit card business, the strong increase in yield is more pronounced due to the short-term financing of this business. Now I would like to hand over to Volker for an update on the provisions for losses.

Volker Gloe

executive
#4

Yes. Thank you, Pascal. And as we saw on the page of the P&L, we reported a loss provision of CHF 35.2 million for the first half in '24 and with that a loss rate of 1.0%. This is in line with our guidance and reflects the expected post-COVID normalization. In the context of this normalization, the loss rate has been gradually moving back to long-term trends, which you can clearly also see on the historic loss level chart on the upper left on this page. In the first half of 2023, the loss rate was at 0.7%, then, as Pascal mentioned, 0.9% in the second half of 2023. And now we are back on a level of 1%. This is also reflected in the portfolio quality metrics with a 30-plus delinquency on a level of 2.4% and NPL ratio at 0.8%, a slight uptick versus the prior year. And on this post-COVID normalization, you might recall that during the pandemic, we took portfolio actions and tightened our credit risk policies to avoid loss increases in an uncertain macro environment. Consequently, post COVID, we reversed and changed the policies to allow for additional growth and for optimizing profitability. So this naturally leads to a loss performance normalization. That is partially lacked, though, as it takes some time until new origination vintages are maturing. This is how we manage -- typically manage through a credit cycle and shows our capabilities to steer the bank's loss performance. We see that reflected in the vintage performance as illustrated on the bottom left of this page. It shows that the originated accounts from the 2022 vintage. So the yellow line in the chart here, carry higher risk than the previous years that were originated during the pandemic and that the vintage performance is now back to pre-COVID levels. With continued and diligent portfolio steering, we expect for the full year, the loss rate of around 1%. In the first half, we have been observing individual pockets or segments in the portfolio where we currently somewhat adverse macro environment. And here we are thinking about cost of living such as, for instance, energy expenses, health or rental expenses have been affecting debt servicing capacities of customers in these segments. Following prudent risk strategies and as we usually do in these cases, we have put measures in place to ensure a sound risk and reward balance, and risk and reward balance means that credit risk and loss performance should obviously not be seen in isolation, but as part of optimizing the overall profitability. We apply risk-based pricing mechanics that ensures adequate pricing for the risk that we are taking on our balance sheet. Consequently, when we report a higher loss rate in H1 '24 compared to the same period in '23, it comes also with a higher yield at the same time. And that's exactly what we saw in the previous page. It is part of our Cembra DNA to constantly optimize between these dimensions of growth, credit risk and pricing and to calibrate that towards our midterm targets. And with that, I hand it back to Pascal.

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#5

Thank you, Volker. Moving to operating expense. The expense remained stable at CHF 135.2 million, and the cost income ratio stood at 50.4%. If we adjust for the restructuring provisions of CHF 2.7 million, the cost income ratio stood at 49.4%. Let me explain the restructuring provisions in more detail. In 2024, we announced a restructuring plan with the objective of enhancing operational efficiencies and optimizing cost structure. The restructuring plan will include restructuring activities such as headcount reductions. The total program cost originally estimated to CHF 3 million to CHF 5 million. As of at 30th of June 2024, we incurred CHF 2.7 million of the costs related to this restructuring program. The personnel expense rose by 2% and are expecting clearly to decline in the second half of the year due to the streamlining of the organizations and the 11% reductions of full account equivalent FTEs between 30th of June 2023 and 1st of July 2024. We are on track regarding cost savings for strategic transformations as well as from streamlining of our organization. As a result of these ongoing transformations, we confirm the cost income ratio below 49% for the full year and a further decline to below 39% until 2026. Both cost savings from operational excellence and revenue growth will contribute to the reduction of the cost/income ratio from 2024 to 2026. Let's move to the balance sheet. On the asset side, as mentioned earlier, we are pleased with the 2% increase of the net financing receivables, and the higher cash balance was driven by our continued discipline funding management. On the liability side, the increase of funding is mainly driven by retail deposit growth. I will explain in a few minutes. And ultimately, the shareholders' security decreased by 3% to CHF 1.1 billion. This is mainly driven by the dividend payout of CHF 117 million in April 2024. Moving to funding. The funding balance at 30th of June increased by CHF 188 million, mainly driven by deposits or retail fundings. We observed an increased demand for retail funding following the successful revamp of our savings account offering in January 2024. These are mainly a retail product, savings account with withdraw limits up to CHF 20,000 and 1, 3, 6-month notice period above this limit or medium term deposits from 2 to 10 years. The retail funding increase allowed us to reduce over funding source, leading to a more robust funding profile. This is reflected by an improvement of the NSFR to 124%. LCR remained elevated at 890% and we reported strong liquidity metrics for the first half of the year. The end of period cost increased slightly from 147% to 162%. And we expect that the funding rate will start to stabilize following the 2 policy rate cuts and assuming current interest rate expectations. Moving to capital. Risk-weighted assets increased in line with the growth in net financing receivables. We remain very well capitalized with a strong Q1 ratio of 17.1% and managing the capital in combination with growth and return on equity as is the core of our strategy until 2026. We expect the capital ratio to be slightly above the 17% target by the end of the year. With that, I would like to hand over to Holger for the outlook.

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#6

Great. Thanks, Pascal. So look, let me give you some color around what we've done in the first half in terms of delivering our strategic ambition and targets. And I'd say, making good progress here across the board. In terms of our DNA, we're quite pleased in terms of the focus on delivering here, particularly as it pertains to repricing activity, cost discipline and others. In operational excellence, really a key milestone here on upgrading the core banking platform with the full rollout of leading products for our auto dealers. And this really sets us on a path to sustainable and significant efficiency improvements. So we're excited about that. The new savings product range has also been positioned well, generate significant inflows in the first half. And clearly, we've been able to launch a strong proposition to the Swiss consumer base here. We further expanded our service center in Riga. We're pleased with the talent access. We recall this came to us through the acquisition of Byjuno, strong quality of services and financial leverage. Look it's a strong addition and a growing and ambitious team. We also talked about outsourcing select back-office processes and pleased to confirm that this is going quite well with the service levels to plan or better and in line with efficiency expectations. In business acceleration, we now have an enhanced proposition to our partners in leasing, faster processing and more product and service features going forward as we build out the platform. Payments, strong growth in net revenues. We're delivering on cards payments game plan we articulated to you. We work on extending partnerships, TCS is a key one for the first half, pleased with that. And in our app, we launched a range of new features such as Click-to-Pay, Google Pay and others. We also went live with the leading product in our mobile app, taking another step in serving customers across products with a simple and intuitive engagement tool. New growth of TWINT, the Pay later consumer fund proposition is now available to the 5 million customer base they have. This is on the back of Worldline opening up their acceptance locations and merchant base, PostFinance, [indiscernible], the majority of the Cantonal banks, we've got UBS and [indiscernible] following shortly with that also nice growth in number of users. And last not least, we launched a new merchant portal across the combined merchant base with the combination of the 2 businesses. We're pleased with the new organization that's in place in delivering. We launched campaigns around our brand refresh, which really underpin our position as a provider of unique product breadth across consumer finance and payments. That is also reflected in our financial targets. You see on the right, we're really on track across the board for the full year and also going forward in terms of the metrics that we put out. So what does this mean for the rest of the year, we expect continued resilient performance. In lending, our focus is continue to be on profitable growth, both in personal loans and auto, quite deliberately managing the gross price loss triangle, and will also, of course, leverage the new platform for further efficiencies on the outer side. Payments continuing to move forward on the game plan we articulated to you around product density and propositions. We're excited and we see significant potential, as we said, to systematically serve the 2 million-plus customers across the business. And to that end, we'll be improving and simplifying our instant onboarding process to tap into the buy now pay later customer base to cross-sell as we go forward. We're going to be expanding our app with new services to service features coming and also build on expanding into the leasing customer base here. Again, making this more and more the center point of engagement for all our customers across the business. We'll continue to press ahead in operational excellence with new services and features to enhance our value proposition on the leasing platform, continued scaling of our service in and Riga and further optimization of the outsourced activities. All of this with a strong focus on benefits realization as we are and where we are in terms of the strategic cycle. So for the second half, first, with the measures we executed, whether it's on price, on cost organization streamlining, we have good visibility for the financial performance for the second half. We expect net revenues to continue to outpace GDP. We will see a further increase in the net interest margin and for the full year cost-income ratio below 49%, loss performance around 1%, or as articulated by Pascal and Volker. With that and the resulting net income improvement in the second half versus the first half as anticipated in February, we delivered an ROE between 13% and 14%, and we also confirm our midterm targets. So in summary, I'd say a good start to the year. We're particularly pleased with the net revenue growth and what we're seeing on the income side, strong continued diligence in costs, loss management and pricing. The core banking upgrade is a meaningful and critical step forward in terms of long-term sustainability and sustainable scalability efficiency and clear line of sight to H2 performance. So we look forward to the second half. With that, thank you so much for your attention. We look forward to taking your questions.

Operator

operator
#7

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Andreas Venditti from Vontobel.

Andreas Venditti

analyst
#8

I have actually -- thank you for the swift presentation. Actually, I have actually a number of questions. Maybe we start with net interest income. Can you maybe provide a bit of color of how far the repricing has gone, maybe by the different books that you are working on? That's mainly on the interest income side. On the funding cost side, Pascal, I think you mentioned stabilization. Does that mean the stabilization at the exit rate? Shall we assume that? Or I'm not sure how to understand this. On the expense side, FTEs obviously went down quite a bit, and you mentioned that the impact will be visible in the second half. Now should we expect an impact, let's say, in line with the decrease in FTEs or have the FTE declines being more in, let's say, more below average paid staff, so less than the decrease? On buy now pay later, we had flat growth. And you mentioned a kind of a shift in terms of focus on profitability. Is this done? Or shall we also assume further let's say, impact on growth in the second half? Or should the growth rate basically resume? Yes. Maybe one last one from my side. On the dividend, you said at least 4, shall we assume they are basically dividend going, let's say, in line with profit growth or, yes.

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#9

Thanks very much for the question. Let me kick off with some color on the net interest income and then also with the buy now pay later, and I'll hand over to Pascal for some more detail. And in fact, let me start with buy now pay later from a flow perspective. So look, firstly, I think putting it into the context, right? We combine buy now pay later and Cards into one segment. And we're very pleased with the overall segment performance, right? We mentioned the revenue growth, the 13% across the [ 250% ] coming from Cards. I think really good products there by the team in terms of pushing this forward. Indeed, we had a little bit of consolidation coming out of the combination of the 2 businesses. And we're really focusing on profitability, hence, you also see the fees holding up here. But we do expect this business to return to growth in the near term, say, 6 to 12 months. It is still -- it continues to be an exciting opportunity for us. We've elaborated on this before. We have a strong market position. We have good retailer relationships. So we do expect that continued growth. We also reconfirm the CHF 10 million to CHF 20 million net income contribution. And on top of that, as we said, Andreas is right, the ability to systematically tap into that customer base and cross it into the rest of the -- in the portfolio. So we're excited about the prospects. That's I'd say on buy now pay later. In terms of net interest income, look, you'll recall, right, we tackled this very actively when the SMB at the time first started increasing rates that gave us a window of opportunity, which we grabbed, right? And then obviously, with interest rate caps moving up, we continue to push this. And we continue to do so, right? As all contracts roll off and new ones come on, hence, I think also the commentary on net interest margin. But let me hand over to Pascal here for some more detail on the other question.

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#10

Thank you, Andreas. On the funding side, so I was referring to the end of period of funding costs. So basically, on the end of 2022, we had -- we were at 0.79%, and end of 2023, 1.47%. And now we are at 1.62% end of period of funding cost. So that means you see that the increase though is reducing. Reducing and now we anticipated at all this to simply stabilize or start to stabilize. So I was referring again to the end of period as a funding cost on the Page #13. On the OpEx, first, clearly, for the OpEx, we expect the cost-income ratio to be below 49% for the full year 2024, which means, clearly, we'll be below 48% for the second half of the year. We have clear line of sight given the revenue outlook as well as the realized automations and the organization of streamlining, which has already been implemented. So for now on although we started to -- we anticipate we started reductions of the cost income ratio over the next now 2.5 years to the 39% or below. And once again, I think important is to mention although the improvement on the cost-income ratio is a ratio, so it's really a reason on one side, on the numerator side, by the run rate savings coming out of the several automation, streamlining of organizations. And then as we mentioned before, on the revenue side. Finally, on the dividend, confirm the dividend policy of CHF 4 at least for 2024 and then increasing in line with sustainable earnings growth.

Operator

operator
#11

The next question comes from Mate Nemes from UBS.

Mate Nemes

analyst
#12

I wanted to follow up on NII and specifically net interest margin. I think in the presentation, you wrote a rebound to 5.5% expected in 2024, '25. I think then in the prepared remarks, you mentioned latest by '26. Could you provide any additional clarity on the timing of that? A rebound, I guess, to 5.5% by the end of the year appears at this point, challenging, unless you're suggesting that you could accelerate repricing on the asset side. So any helpful color on that would be appreciated. And secondly, I'm curious if you could share any initial experience with the TWINT buy now pay later rollout usage, usage patterns, what do you see actually on your platform and better that can really explorate growth in the buy now pay later business. just echoing what Andreas mentioned. It seems like flat fees, lower billing volumes, e-commerce market, not exactly growing. It doesn't scream of a growth story on that side. So if you could help us understand where that growth will be coming from?

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#13

Yes. Thanks, Pascal, you kick it off and then I take the buy now pay later.

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#14

Yes. Maybe as obvious, I start with the net interest margin. Well, first, I will remind that we want the net interest margin is combinations of pricing activities of commissions payment to our dealers and partners on interest income, other interest income on our cash balances and ultimately on interest expense. And we said several times that the net interest margin is a very important KPI. So for the way we manage this business. One year ago, we had this net interest margin at 5.1%, and we indicated that we were expecting for the end of the year 2023 stabilization. And we basically have demonstrated stabilization even as though slight increased to 5.2% over second half of last year. We continue to see now for the first half 2024, a further increase of 5.3%. So basically, although we demonstrate, we prove the rebound, we are confident that we'll move towards the 5.5%. I said indeed 2025, latest 2026, in the context of everything, which is also happening at all on the capital market interest rates, expectations. But look, we are confident of this rebound and then coming back to the 5.5% in the midterm.

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#15

Thanks, Pascal. And Mate, look, on the buy now pay later. Look, I'd say first, important to note, we're reiterating our expectations and guidance in terms of net income contribution for 2026 for this business. And so that remains intact and in place and we're confident we'll get there. Look, in terms of TWINT, in particular, it's a relationship we like. As is the case, these relationships take some persistence and patients to grow, but we're progressing in, I think we're progressing well. As I mentioned, right, we have a new product with the consumer funded proposition live now. We had some of the major banks joined, Worldline opening up to all of their merchant base. It's been a tremendous, a big step forward, and we've got the remaining banks coming live in the near future. So we do expect there to be higher growth coming from that particular relationship. And so I'd say positive outlook here in terms of growth in the near term, we said 6 to 12 months. And then again, Mate, that is also the reason right why we put this business with the product segment cards together because we talked about this before, right? The use cases are not quite the same, but they're similar, siblings in a way, right? And we do see very significant potential to move from a primarily transaction relationship on the buy now pay later side into a cross banking relationship in terms of other products here, right? And that's something we're working on quite actively in terms of the infrastructure and the commercial approach to get ready for this in the second half and into 2025. So we like the business. We like the relationship with TWINT, and we're redoing our guidance for the business.

Operator

operator
#16

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Daniel Regli from ZKB.

Daniel Regli

analyst
#17

I have 4 questions. One is kind of first follow-up on the development on gross yields. And what I noted is that particularly in credit cards, the gross yields have increased and have increased more than I would have anticipated by the kind of lift up in maximum rate for credit cards. So can you elaborate a bit what happened here? Has the amount of revolving credit card that increased? Or what was the reason for this pickup in yields on credit card that? Then secondly, on your interest income, obviously, we have seen these 2 rate cuts by the SMB. What are your expectations with regards to the maximum rate for consumer credit and credit card debt and how far does this impact your repricing activity and to the NIM outlook? And then third, the loan loss provisions. You have previously been saying that your target is below 1% loan loss provision rate and now you're guiding for about 1% loan loss provision rate. Obviously, this is nitty-gritty, but it's still slightly above your guidance. So should 2024 be rather an exceptionally high loan loss provision year? Or do you expect to kind of trail at this 1% level going forward? And then last question on restructuring expenses. You have accounted for CHF 2.7 million restructuring expenses in H1. Can you give us a bit of a guidance what should we expect in H2 and next year in terms of restructuring expenses?

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#18

Thanks for the question. I'd say Pascal, maybe you kick it off with the yield and the interest income, and then we'll go to Volker on the loss side, right?

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#19

Yes. Happy to do so. So on the gross yield cards indeed, so the yield has increased to 9.9% from 8% last year. And as you mentioned, so this is driven by ultimately the increase in the interest of the max interest rates, we have seen this -- the 2 other increase of the interest rate cap. Basically, as our assets are broadly stable. You can see here ultimately the 3% and the impact is largely because it's short-term financing. So as soon as we reprice in the card side as we see the impact, although we've been at a couple of months. So we see the impact much, much faster than on the other products, particularly auto and P loan. Regarding all the interest rate cap at this point, we are not aware of any change of the interest rate cap. Looking at the methodology use, it's not unlikely that interest rate cut may change as well at some point in the next 6 to 12 months. But we don't know the timing, if any. And in any way, we have demonstrated a proactive management on this, up or down. And so in that sense, no concerns or policy on any impact already for 2024. Regarding the restructuring provisions, CHF 2.7 million for the first 6 months of 2024. Second half, if any, clearly has a lower this amount and no plan at all for 2025 yet.

Volker Gloe

executive
#20

And if I continue on your question on the losses, Daniel. So our midterm target is intact, it's less or equal than 1%. And relative to the guidance we have been delivering on this guidance. What we are seeing is the post-COVID normalization, in COVID we cut, we reduced our risk appetite, and we have been reversing back, which also means that we are now getting back to the long-term trend. And if you look into the prior years, it has always been kind of oscillating around 1% which is also the reason why we give now the indication for the full year on a loss rate of around 1%. When this is set, I just want to reiterate that we should probably not look at loss rate in isolation because there might be segments that actually are on the other end of the loss rate that this is justified with a good return in these segments. So therefore, the triangle that Holger mentioned between growth, pricing and the risk taking is very crucial for us. And that's also what we have been doing in the past and what we intend to do in the future so that we deliver on our midterm targets.

Daniel Regli

analyst
#21

Thank you for your answers. Can I quickly follow-up on the restructuring expense. And obviously, until 2023, you had about CHF 19 million in total and now you have another, so you're getting to CHF 22 million and with some less in H2, maybe CHF 24-ish million for the full year. So do you kind of expect lower restructuring expenses than originally guided or announced?

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#22

You refer to 2022, 2024. So first, just to recap on the restructuring provisions. We said, we expect a one-off percent cost between CHF 3 million to CHF 5 million for the full year. And then we also said then obviously, the first H1 CHF 2.7 million incurred. And clearly, if any second half of the year will be at a lower than this amount, yes.

Daniel Regli

analyst
#23

But can you remind me of what you guided for the total restructuring expense for the whole operational excellence project? I believe it was more close to CHF 30 million, if I recall it right, then now obviously, you're only getting to about CHF 35 million.

Pascal Perritaz

executive
#24

No. No, I don't recall this number. Maybe we can clarify. We said that we expect from the overall operational excellence initiatives to run rate savings of CHF 30 million. But we didn't say the restructuring cost to total restructuring of the overall program. We refer to the restructuring cost to look for the period, financial year 2024 one-off exercise. Sorry for that. You can also have a look on the page, on the appendix Page 28 which gives a bit more color on the development of the cost income ratio and how we will deliver the 39%, we have with several explanations on the restructuring provisions and one-off personnel costs. Thank you, Page 28.

Operator

operator
#25

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Laubenthal for any closing remarks.

Holger Laubenthal

executive
#26

Good. Well, look, thank you very much for dialing in this morning. I enjoyed the conversation. I'd say in summary, right, good start of the year. Pleased with net revenue and also with the income side, key milestone with the core banking transformation, right, in terms of sustainable efficiencies as we're aiming for. And I'd say, look, good visibility for the second half. So we look forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks very much, and have a great day.

Operator

operator
#27

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

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