Commerzbank AG (CBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to our Virtual Capital Markets Day, live from the 49th floor here at our headquarters in Frankfurt. It's almost exactly 1 year since our last Capital Markets Day, and we are very much looking forward to giving you an update on our strategy 2024 today. Before I run you through the agenda, please take note of the usual disclaimer regarding all the content today. Manfred Knof, Thomas Schaufler, Michael Kotzbauer and Bettina Orlopp will each give you updates on the strategy, which we estimate will take not an hour and the half, but a little bit less. As it is only 2 weeks after the presentation of our 2021 figures, the focus today is on the operational development of our strategy towards our targets in 2024. This includes concrete milestones for 2022 as well as an update of our financial targets. As promised 1 year ago, we want to be as transparent as possible and give you the opportunity to keep track on our strategy execution. The presentations will be followed by a 10-minute break. After that, all 4 Board members are looking forward to answering your questions in the live Q&A session, for which we've allowed a full 90 minutes. Now let me hand you over to our CEO, Manfred Knof.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our Capital Markets Day. 12 months after the presentation of our strategy 2024, we thought it was the right time to take stock and provide you with the next steps towards our targets. However, we should look at our plan with the caveat owing to the terrible situation we are witnessing in Ukraine. The world is holding its breath. We here at Commerzbank, strongly condemn the attack on Ukraine. Hardly any of us imagined that this could happen. Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine who are defending democracy and its values for all of us. I say this with all humility and the greatest respect. And it goes without saying that we will fully implement all sanctions imposed. We, of course, analyze the situation and what it means for Commerzbank. We currently employ 135 people in Russia, and we have 1 employee in Ukraine, and we are in close contact with them. Our business focus especially on the German Mittelstand and Corporates in Germany. Our total financial exposure to Russia amounts to roughly EUR 1.3 billion. This is net of EUR 400 million ECA coverage. On top of this exposure, we have also around EUR 600 million Russia-related exposure which consists mostly of pre-export financing of commodities. All in all, this represents 0.4% of our total exposure at default in Commerzbank. We have already reduced this exposure over the last years. Of course, we will closely monitor the situation, especially regarding our subsidiary in Moscow. That said, let me now start with the update on our strategy, which, of course, does not reflect any potential impact from this situation. Just a few days ago, we presented our figures for the past year. Our good performance in 2021 gives us a tailwind. With respect to our targets in 2024, we are positive about the current year and beyond. We are increasing our return target for 2024 to more than 7%. At the same time, we have achieved a clear view on capital return with a potential payout of EUR 3 billion to EUR 5 billion. And I want to stress that all our ambitions towards 2024 do not include any positive impact from possible rate hikes by the ECB. This would rather come on top of the numbers we present today. Let me start with the points that are most important to me. First, we have a clear target business model with focus on efficient value-oriented client coverage. The bank will be much leaner while keeping services and advisory at a high level. Second, our transformation is well on track, and we delivered in 2021. We have reported good financial results and have reached all significant transformation milestones. Third, in 2022, we will finalize the implementation of the client-facing setup and largely lock in the redundancy program. We will roll out our new business model for private business and corporate clients. At the same time, we aim to have individual agreements with the vast majority of redundant staff. Fourth, we have set clear KPIs to measure the progress of the transformation in 2022. As last year, I am closely tracking the process and milestones of the transformation. This is a clear CEO task. Fifth, sustainability has become an integral part of our strategy. We have defined ambitious targets for the carbon footprint and will actively seize the business opportunities from the green transformation. Sixth, we are committed to our 2024 targets and have decided on a capital return policy. We aim to resume dividends for 2022, and we want to return EUR 3 billion to EUR 5 billion. Now let me underpin each of the key messages with a little bit more detail, and I will start with our target business model. Both segments have entered into a financial fundamental transformation towards an efficient value-oriented client coverage model with focus on sustainability. Client centricity remains core. In PSBC, we focus our sales and advisory resources on our premium clients, which stand for a large share of German revenues. In Corporate Clients, we have the clear target to extend our undisputed leadership in banking for the Mittelstand. This includes our coverage of the German foreign trade where we already enjoy a market share of more than 20%. The second pillar of our targeted business model is digital. Our digital banking propositions in both segments meet the needs of an increasing customer base and are very cost efficient. For private clients, we are leveraging all our comdirect expertise and for corporates, we are first in the German market. When it comes to the profitability pillar of our target business model, efficiency is at the top of my list. Efficiency in terms of cost and capital. Lower costs due to a leaner service network and remote advisory are clearly the name of the game in PSBC. In Corporate Clients, it's also very much about capital-accretive business. We will only pursue client business that follows a clear path towards earning cost of capital. We are clearly putting profitability before growth. The fourth pillar of our target business model is sustainability. As an integral part of our business model, we offer a broad range of sustainable banking products to our private customers. In Corporate Clients, we support the green transition of our clients. Thus, we also make sure that we meet our net 0 target by 2050. Based on these pillars and an improved outlook on revenues, we are confident to reach more than 7% return on tangible equity by 2024. And the transformation towards this target is well on trend. Let me point to some of the highlights of 2021. Financially, 2021 was a good year. We achieved a positive net result despite almost EUR 2 billion onetime charges, such as restructuring provisions for the redundancy program. Fee income developed nicely. And in Corporate Clients, we could keep revenues stable despite an 8% reduction in RWA and was also a successful first year of the transformation. More than 6,000 of the 10,000 job cuts are already locked in on an individual basis. The first 3 advisory centers in PSBC are operational while we have closed further 250 branches. In Corporate Clients, we have already launched our direct bank coverage model and, to date, have closed 6 international locations. Again, 2021 was a good start, and we have a clear ambition for 2022. We will complete the client-facing setup of both segments this year. In PSBC, we will go live with all 12 advisory centers. This enables us to keep the high standard of service and advisory while closing the final 100 branches. At the same time, we will strengthen our businesses premium clients by special product offerings and by allocating more advisory time. In Corporate Clients, our direct bank for 7,000 clients will be up and running. Our new coverage model for the Mittelstand will be implemented and we will have closed 10 out of the targeted 15 international locations. Financially, we aim for a net result of more than EUR 1 billion and a cost base of EUR 6.3 billion. Regarding capital, we prudently guide for a CET1 ratio of more than 13%. Our strategic targets for 2022 are also reflected in the dashboard that are used for regular performance management. Overall, I'm pleased with the performance so far and also optimistic towards our ambitions and, at the same time, sensible targets for 2022 and 2024. I already touched on PSBC and Corporate Clients. And Thomas and Michael will go into more details on the 2 segments later on. Let's now look at the KPIs for operations and head office. A substantial pillar of the digital transformation is the ramp-up of our nearshoring locations in Lodz, Prague and Sofia. As planned, the share of the overall IT nearshore capacity has increased from 14% to 20% in 2021. The ramp-up is well on track to achieve the KPI target of 24% by end of this year. A further important measure to reduce complexity and increase efficiency is a migration of IT applications into the cloud. In 2021, we have further increased the share of applications that run on cloud technology to 41%. Our target for 2022 is to reach 60% by the end of the year. To ensure high stability of the systems and processes at all times, we have slightly reduced the targets for the reduction of staff in 2024. This also takes into account the internal servicing of the security settlement business. Let me move on to our achievements and plan for sustainability. Sustainability has become an integral part of our strategy and also our governance framework. We have set clear targets to become net-zero while our own banking operations shall be at 0 by 2024, our customer portfolio shall be there by 2050. Furthermore, we have committed to channel EUR 300 billion into sustainable products by 2025. We have issued our new policy for fossil fuels and have paved the way to be compliant with regulatory requirements such as EU taxonomy. We have almost doubled the volume of sustainable products last year and aim for more than EUR 200 billion for our net-zero commitment. The emissions of our electricity generation portfolio will be reduced by more than 75% and those of OEMs in automotive by more than 45% until 2030. But sustainability and ESG are more than carbon footprint. The social dimension in which Commerzbank is well advanced, is also very important to me. To give you a flavor, more than 1,500 employees engage in bottom-up developed networks for gay people, farmers and jobs or female leadership to name just a few. Diversity in its best sense is deeply rooted in the corporate culture of Commerzbank. And we can further leverage this asset. We want to increase the share of women in management positions from 34% to 40% by 2030. Let's take a closer look at the volumes of sustainable products within Commerzbank. On our way to EUR 300 billion by 2025, we aim for EUR 207 billion this year. Please note that the counting of volumes of many products in the start again from 0 every year. ESG bond transactions serve as a good example. This is why the target for 2022 may not look overambitious. In fact, it requires all hands on deck in the second year of our transformation. We will also constantly improve our internal processes and databases in order to optimize this sustainable classification of our portfolio. Let me now summarize our targets for 2024, which are somewhat more ambitious than with our original plan 1 year ago. First of all, we plan to increase revenues by EUR 600 million compared to last year. This is EUR 400 million more than 1 year ago and reflects the positive development in 2021 as well as the impact of Polish rate hikes on February 4. And again, very importantly, this revenue plan does not incorporate any positive impact from possible euro rate hikes. In this sense, I would call our revenue plan prudent. On costs, we aim for an overall cost reduction of EUR 1.3 billion. This is EUR 100 million less than announced last year. The difference stems from the mBank in Poland, where inflation kicks in. I have finally accepted this cost increase as it comes with at least EUR 200 million extra revenues from rate rises in Poland. The German cost reduction path, however, is completely unchanged to last year's announcement, and it's based on the gross reduction of 10,000 FTEs. With the EUR 300 million higher pre-provision profit compared to last year's plan and an assumed dividend payout ratio of 30%, we raised our targets for 2024 to more than 7% return on tangible equity. And we increased our previous target for up to EUR 3 billion with capital return to shareholders. Now we aim to return EUR 3 billion to EUR 5 billion. This leads me to my final key message on capital return policy. And I would like to reiterate what I said 2 weeks ago when we disclosed our 2021 figures. We currently run our business with a substantial capital buffer of more than 400 basis points in CET1 ratio. This buffer provides us with comfort during the transformation but once we have reached higher levels of income, we will definitely return substantial parts of the buffer to our shareholders. To provide you with clear guidance, we have developed a capital return policy for Commerzbank. The policy has been approved by the Board of Managing Directors as well as by the Supervisory Board, and it's also agreed with the regulators. Provided that we meet our financial targets in 2022, we want to pay a dividend with a payout ratio of 30% to begin with. Afterwards, we want to increase our payout ratio within the range of 30% to 50%. We will also consider share buybacks as part of payouts or as additional distribution. Of course, such concrete buyback programs will always be subject to regulatory approval. Based on this policy, we want to distribute EUR 3 million to EUR 5 million to our shareholders and keep the CET1 buffer of 200 to 250 basis points above MDA. I do hope that you can all see how much we have achieved and that we have a clear plan for the future. But at the end of the day, it's all about execution and delivery, quarter-by-quarter by quarter. As CEO of Commerzbank, I stand for the new business model for sustainable successful Commerzbank. And in particular, I also stand for performance management, accountability and execution. As a team, we all share this mindset. I'm very confident that we will get things done and reach the milestones for 2022 and as well as our targets for 2024. Now let me pass on to Thomas Schaufler, our new Board member for private and small business customers who will provide you with his update on the PSBC strategy. Thomas, please.

Thank you, Manfred. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to meet you all. As many of you know, I joined Commerzbank in December last year. Prior to that, I spent 25 years at Erste Bank in Austria in various different roles, most recently as Head of the Group Retail Board. Given my entire career has been working with clients, you could say that retail and private banking are in my DNA. Therefore, I would like to share 3 firm beliefs and -- that guides my actions and decisions. First of all, I stand for client focus. I'm convinced that customer satisfaction is the most important driver for my P&L and for business success, providing excellent services and excellent advice, brings us a higher share of wallet from existing clients, and it makes us much more attractive for new clients. Secondly, I believe in mobile first. We will not, we will definitely not digitize our old processes. Instead, we will invent new digital customer journeys to make their daily financial life much more convenient. The old sentence, I have to go to the bank is gone. We now need to be aware our clients want us. Thirdly, compelling digital offers, I must have to attract and retain clients. In addition, digitized processes enable significant efficiency gains. These can be reinvested in advising clients. This is why I strongly believe that skilled and motivated staff will make a real difference in serving our clients across the different channels. In a nutshell, my assessment for the private and small business client is we have a huge customer potential. We are on a clear digitization path and have identified significant efficiency potential. And I have to say, we have a great team in place. Going forward, we will create a wow effect in the German banking industry by positively surprising our clients digitally and personally. This will help us reach our profitable goals in the upcoming years. And now let me guide you through the strategic topics for PSBC, starting with out strengths. With two very strong brands, Commerzbank and Comdirect. We are able to offer the whole range of banking from digital banking by a very competitive brokerage towards private banking and wealth management. Over recent years, we have built up strong digital capabilities, the most prominent example is the mobile interface, which is ranked among the top 3 in Germany. We see that the loyalty of our customer remains at a high level. For instance, churn of high-value customer turns out to be lower than expected for 2021. Our very well-established distribution continues to be our key strengths. Last but not least, we have delivered on our financial targets and milestones for 2021. We have permanently closed an additional 240 branches. We have raised a number of active digital banking users to 70%. Loan on security volumes have been increased to EUR 340 billion and FTEs are down by 1,700 already in 2021. I'm totally convinced that we can successfully build on this strong foundation. Nevertheless, we need to keep space and ambition high in order to achieve our aspiration. We need to put a clear focus on further improving efficiency across all channels, and we have to reduce complexity a lot. And we need to strengthen our processes and assistance systems as they are the key helping our clients to manage their daily financial lives. Now let me guide you through the key cornerstones of our strategic program, and let's start with a short overview. The fundamental transformation of our business model has the clear goal to drive profitability. Our overall arching proposition is to save 20% of our costs, and we will do this through reducing our cost to serve across the entire customer base until 2024. Our new sales model has 3 key channels. Channel one, digital. Our ambition is that the majority of our customer base will be active digital banking users by end of 2024. We can achieve this by establishing a true mobile-first approach for all relevant service requests and simple transactions. The second channel is remote. In 2021, we have successfully launched the pilot by onboarding approximately 850,000 private customers. And by the end of 2022, our remote centers will be fully in place. We will have 12 locations across Germany, providing our clients with flexible servicing hours. Finally, the third channel is personal advice. On the one hand, we are increasing our efficiency through the conversion of our branch network. In the future, we will have 450 advisory branches in place, lean in cost and stuff providing our clients with easy and quick advice for non-complex products. On the other hand, personal advice is key for growing our business with premium clients. They will personally service in 220 premium branches. Here, our top sales stuff and highly qualified specialists will be working on complex banking needs in order to create value for the clients and solve their problems. Now let's dig a bit deeper into the business model, starting with mobile and online. To be very clear, developing mobile as our leading sales channel is key to the strategic transformation of our business model. In 2021, we started the rollout of digital assistant features, for instance, by going live with our inlet financial analysis. With the help of our advanced offering, we have already increased the number of digital interaction points. In 2021, the number of active digital banking users rose by 9% compared to previous year. Moreover, 77% of all log-ins are already conducted via the app. Meanwhile, we also substantially improved the efficiency of our mobile offering. For example, we increased authenticated in-app calls by 33% to 1 million in 2021. This ensures that clients can be advised immediately without further authentification in any other channel. Importantly, with our marketing analyzing tools and based on our client data, we know which of our 250 targeted campaigns is suitable for every single client on a daily basis. This is a very important step forward individualized digital advisory services. Interestingly, 76% of our digital clients use the digital post box. This makes the information and communication much more convenient and helps us on the way to a paperless bank. Finally, client feedback on our mobile app is very positive. As already said, we are ranked in the top 3 in Germany. In 2022, we will continue to deliver on our targets by expanding our offering towards a full distribution channel, we increased our revenues by implementing further features like the in-app installment loan. We will further reduce our cost to serve as we incentivize clients to use our digital channels. And last but not least, we will increase customers' loyalty as well as our share of wallet through creating outstanding customer experience. In uncertain times like this, real-time quoting from a stable trading platform with top execution is key. We offer that via the comdirect. Moreover, we provide an efficient, scalable and effective direct banking proposition. Therefore, it's our clear goal to further develop this offering as it completes the strength of Commerzbank. Let me give you some examples regarding the achievement of 2021. Security volumes increased by around EUR 25 billion, on which approximately EUR 12 billion [ stems ] from new business. Value-based security revenues increased by 19% compared to 2020. And assets under management of Comdirect's robo-advisor, cominvest rose to more than EUR 1 billion. As brokerage activity remained at high levels, we do expect the strong performance to continue. This is why in 2022, we will add further product innovations. Now this brings me to the most important topics for 2022. Through remote advice, we will close the gap between pure online and off-line business. And we will bring our top advisors into the living room of our clients. Incoming remote contacts were directed to highly skilled experts. They provide any kind of advice and offer solutions. Depending to the need of the clients such as advice includes mortgages, and also security products. Beyond the general service, we offer an exclusive fast lane for our premium clients. The experience from the pilot is excellent. Availability of our 3 already established centers is around 88%. And the Net Promoter Score is the relevant measure for customer satisfaction, reaches levels in line with the score we usually see across our branches. In the future, we want to convince our clients with a very, very active advisory approach. Therefore, we are closely monitoring the development of these key factors during the ramp-up for our remote centers towards a fully functioning remote advice channel in 2022. In 2024, we will then be finalizing our vision of a full service offering of a direct bank with personal advice via phone and video for all our product clients. From a quality point of view, there shouldn't be any difference for the customer. They will get the best advice to be sitting in the branch or at home. When it comes to branch closure, we are on a good track. Within the last 2 years, we have closed around 450 branches. At the end of 2021, approximately 550 branches are still remained open, which is very well ahead of our targets. 100 branches will finally be closed in 2022. In terms of staff reduction, we have also made substantial progress in 2021. We are well on track towards our FTE targets in '24. Over the last years, we decreased FTEs by 1,700 to 9,100. For 2022, further significant reduction are planned through our downsizing programs. Nevertheless, we have to be very careful to take our clients with us on this journey. So far, we did a good job by limiting the churn that we had expected from closing down a lot of branches and from implementing our new pricing strategies. We have achieved this through different measures, especially with an individualized communication towards our clients regarding all strategic measures. As a result, revenue churn was approximately 80%, 80% below plan for 2021. Interestingly, the average revenue of churn clients equaled only 10% of the average existing customers' revenue. I believe this means we have the right customer focus, and we actively managed to keep our valuable clients. However, we stay very cautious and believe it's too early to revise our forecast. There is a certain likelihood that churn comes with a time lag to corresponding branch closures and pricing measures. So we are sticking to our guidance of an estimated total transformation churn effect of approximately EUR 300 million. Let's move on with the main growth elements of the strategy. Our premium clients are the key driver for creating additional revenues in the future. In Germany, EUR 3,000 billion on current and saving accounts, with a negative return. So we are really talking about the big opportunity over the upcoming years. Moreover, statistics shows that the premium market in Germany is constantly growing, and we will participate and benefit from this with an expected annual growth in security and business client loans volumes of 10%. In 2021, we well exceeded this target based on a very strong sales result of our advisors. I'm convinced that Commerzbank has a unique proposition for premium clients in Germany. We have the perfect combination of experience in corporate business and wealth management solution. And in the future, we want to leverage this asset by becoming the house bank of our clients by serving them personally with outstanding tailor-made premium, client and premium private banking solutions. This brings me to the outlook for 2022. We will bring new asset management products to our clients. We will increase the value-added time for our advisory teams with our clients. We will put higher focus on managed accounts as tailor-made solutions, and our wealth management clients will profit from exclusive products from newly established corporations. All these measures together are designed to strengthen our revenue pipeline through further increasing customers' loyalty. And I'm convinced that we will be very successful. In total, creating additional revenue is key to deliver our profitability targets. In 2021, we successfully increased our revenues in our PSBC German business to EUR 4 billion. As we stick to our conservative assumption for churn and have not included any upside from rate increases, we only expect a slight growth in revenues until 2024. Our major leverage to improve our cost/income ratio is to stick to a strict cost management. We will further reduce staff expenses. But of course, in order to reach our '24 target of EUR 2.5 billion, we will also take care to take out complexity, reduce IT costs and optimize administrative costs. We have a clear plan going forward. My aim is that by 2024, we will have our new sales model fully in place. We will have increased number of active digital banking users to 73%. Our loan and security volume in Germany will exceed the amount of EUR 390 billion. And our remote channels as well as our self-service offering will be fully established. With all that measures in place, we aim to reach a cost income ratio of 61% in 2024. 2021 has been a promising start to the transformation of PSBC. But there's still a long way to go. I'm sure that we will face challenges in some of the target dimensions. For example, as you can see now very volatile markets. But I'm also convinced that we can manage these challenges and meet our targets for 2024. After all, we have a very common aspiration. We want to positively surprise our customers digitally and personally. This will be the key to reaching our profitability goals in the coming years. Thank you very much for your attention. And now I want to hand over to Michael.

So good afternoon from my side. Let me start with the key statement on our positioning. We are the bank for German corporates with a clear #1 position in the SME segment. We are originally and firmly anchored in Germany as the leading bank of German foreign trade. And we also have an international presence precisely where our clients need us to be. We're a highly innovative, strategic partner of our clients and will provide them with advisory services into the future, we're absolutely committed to this. This is the strategy which we have been implementing disciplined and successfully over the last year. I'd like to highlight 1 topic right at the start that I believe is key from my perspective. And this is something I'm continually experiencing when talking to clients. Our clients truly welcome the strategy with its clear defined focus and they want to have a strong Commerzbank with its in-depth understanding of the German Mittelstand as a partner at their side. Our strategy addresses 4 essential areas for action. Strengthening the strong brand of the Mittelstandsbank in Germany with a differentiated advisory service model and with expansion of direct services. International focus, a very clear yes for providing advisory services for our clients. The export or intend to turn Mittelstand in all important trade corridors as well as our international clients operating in the German market. We are the bridge between Germany and the world. Products. We are bringing products with more efficiency and excellence in line with client requirements. Profitability, robust portfolio management of our RWA and on the revenue side, we want to grow and we will grow. But growth will make efficient use of capital employed. Our achievements of key milestones marked the start of our transformation in 2021. And can be seen in our financials as well. Promised and delivered is what we can state following 12 months of strategy rollout in the Corporate Clients segment. Let's now take a look at the Mittelstandsbank of Germany. The 3 key elements of our domestic market are straightforward. Firstly, the establishment of a direct bank for clients who are digital, fast, and simple solutions and acquire a less manual spectrum of services. Second, the implementation of a differentiated coverage model in the advisory bank. And third, a more efficient user specialist, but most importantly, intensifying advisory services for our high-value clients. In 2021, we already made significant progress in implementation. We achieved 51% of our FTE reduction target in Germany. We also succeeded in substantially increasing the utilization rate of our clients with 24 digital banking users up to now. Despite all the changes, we are seeing a high level of client satisfaction. And this is evidenced by the 1,000 clients with whom we have been piloting our new Direct Banking advisory service. The alignment abroad has also been confirmed by our clients in Germany, given that we have not seen any churn to date. As part of our high-quality advisory services, we are striving to keep potential trend as low as possible. In other words, the implementation in Germany has been gathering pace. This will continue to be driven forward in 2022 with the full rollout of the advisory services models for our 19,000 core clients. By the end of 2024, we will generate additional revenues amounting to EUR 60 million with core clients. Let's now look at our direct bank in further detail. It's obvious why we're introducing this. We are cutting costs to serve by 70%. At the same time, we're meeting the requirements of our clients, a direct bank model matching their aspirations. We are providing access to simplified services and standardized products through our digital channels. This offers our clients digitize services, products and support by sales analytics. These will enable us to deliver better, more efficient and more digital advice. One message here, we know that the model is working as we have already transferred more than 1,000 clients to our direct bank. In 2022, we are starting with a transfer of a further 6,000 clients in parallel with more expansion of digital products and services. And by 2024, the direct bank will be providing direct services to a total of 7,000 clients. This comes with an efficient setup of central advisory services and with significantly higher load ratios of 1 to 500. Ultimately, we'll develop digital products and services for all corporate clients, and we'll make this accessible also to our clients in the advisory bank. Let's now turn to our international setup. The aim here is to streamline our international presence and focus on connectivity with Germany. We have already completed the closure of 6 locations. And we have signed a sales purchase agreement for our unit in Hungary. In 2022, by closing 4 more locations we'll have reached 2/3 of our target. Furthermore, we've already been able to significantly reduce the credit RWA by EUR 1.3 billion. We will consistently drive this initiative forward in 2022 with a reduction of a further EUR 300 billion credit RWA. Focusing means closure of locations in the non-core markets. And also, as it's evident from Hungary, growing cooperations with partner wings will ensure ongoing easy access for our clients to selected markets. And thanks to our new cooperation agreement with Erste Bank Group in the future, we will offer our clients access to other markets in Central and Eastern Europe, alongside Hungary. So will we, in fact, be expanding the range of services for our clients to 8 countries, including Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia and Romania. We also started to establish an adviser sales model. This includes 2 approaches: the lean branch concept and on the other side, the sector approach. The lean branch concept stands for the improved delivery and efficiency at the European locations. We will achieve cost benefits by bundling and standardizing certain middle and back-office activities, centralizing those in German service hubs. The same applies here, develop, test it and rolled out further. We started in Austria and Benelux and we'll gradually expand the concept by 2024. The same holds true for the sector approach into which we have already transferred 200% or 50% of the target clients. In 2022, we will continue firmly on this path. This will include a further 4 location closures, a further 100 clients in the sector approach, 2 additional countries, France and Spain with a lean branch concept in Western Europe and optimization of our stands correspondent bank network. We have already reduced this network to 1,433. This means we have significantly exceeded the target of 1,550 for 2021. And we're well on the way to achieving the target of 1,300 by 2024. And we believe that we are in a good position for our clients here as well. As a full service bank, we will improve our product offering strictly along our clients' needs. This is client centricity. We have 4 core levers to achieve the best possible deal for our clients. Automation, to name one example, we will provide automated support for processes relating to trade transactions and achieve simplification for all steps involved. Simplification. We've already reduced complexity by switching off 45 applications. Digitalization, we have established a digital FX tool, online and mobile, to make foreign exchange transactions simpler for our clients wherever they are. In 2021, we onboarded an additional 400 clients and there is further high potential of scalability. Innovations, such as instant payments and supply chain solutions based on blockchain. One example is the facilitating of foreign trade with MarcoPolo. To remain state of the art, we continue to invest in our products under Strategy 2024. Besides that, high excellence on the product side can also be achieved with cooperations. And Oddo is an ideal example. We have concluded cooperation in the area of equity brokerage and equity research with Oddo BHF for the benefit of our clients. As a result, our clients are going to access to a more broadly based geographical platform than was previously the case. Further focus is on the establishment and expansion of blockchain-based services and applications and IoT-based automated finance. This allows us to be integrated directly in the value-add or payment transaction chains of our clients. So next slide on RWAs. Most efficient naturally also applies to the use of our resources and here, in particular, on RWA. 12 months ago, we were confronted with a huge task relating to active RWA management. In a situation where potential effects from the pandemic were still not very clearly defined. Today, we have already achieved more than we set out to do. Regarding our KPI, we are making good progress. We have already succeeded in significantly reducing the proportion of credit RWA below 3% efficiency to 29% of the portfolio. We are, clearly, within the target corridor that we defined for the RWA portfolio with minimum efficiency. And as a consequence, we also achieved an overall higher RWA efficiency for 3.2 in 2020 to now 3.8 in 2021. This has been achieved through the implementation of a disciplined RWA management and tackling our portfolio name by name. Successful measures here include rightsizing of undrawn credit lines, increasing margins and increasing cross-sell. In 2021, we also exited inefficient noncore clients and freed up RWA Capital. In addition to that, we will once again review securitization as a potential option in 2022. Our outlook on 2022, we will encounter adverse effects from regulatory and model impact and post-COVID ratings. And therefore, we expect our KPI of credit RWA at 31% at the portfolio -- of the portfolio at the year-end. But just to be very clear, we are fully on course for our 2024 goals. Now let's take a more detailed look at individual impact on RWA. The above mentioned proactive management of RWA led to an effect of EUR 9 billion in 2021. And this corresponds to a reduction to EUR 81 billion. As I've already stated, we will encounter an RWA increase of roughly EUR 6 billion in 2022. This includes regulatory and model effects of EUR 7 billion and a deduction of EUR 1 billion on op risk, resulting in around EUR 87 billion of allocated RWA. And this should be regarded as the new starting point of our active management measures. Up to 2024, we will essentially see 2 effects within the framework of our ongoing profitability drive: first, robust management of less efficiently invested RWA and conclusion of the closure of locations internationally; second, we will support growth and reinvest up to EUR 4 billion in RWAs. Based on that, we are targeting RWA of EUR 82 billion in 2024 compared with an earlier target of EUR 84 billion. So next page. Let me start with the right-hand side of this slide on costs. In 2021, we already succeeded in reducing costs by around EUR 150 million front to back. And as of now, we have locked in 50% of our planned reduction in full time equivalents. By overachieving our FTE targets in 2021, we created a tailwind for 2022. Streamlining of our advisory services and the efficiency measures on the product side will generate additional cost savings of around EUR 600 million by 2024. So let's move to the left side on revenues. Despite the outlined reduction in cost in RWA, we expect almost stable revenues in 2024 with no effects of rising interest rates included. Lower revenues from our closure of foreign locations and the offboarding of noncore low RWA efficient clients will almost be offset by growth. Looking at 2021 results, we can say that we had a first good step, and we are confident to reaching our goals in 2024. So moving on. What have we planned for future implementation of the strategy up to 2024. In Germany, we will transfer all clients to the new advisory services models, direct and advisory bank. All of our clients will also have access to digital channels. Outside Germany, we will conclude the streamlining of our international presence with the closure of a total of 15 locations by 2024. By the end of 2022, we are already planning to have completed 2/3 of this. We will further accelerate the consolidation of our trading systems and thereby, target a 40% reduction of system application. We'll be completing the headcount reduction. So clearly, we'll remain in our target corridor of efficient deployment of capital, and we aim to achieve our target of 22% of the portfolio with an RWA efficiency below 3%. So let me conclude with the key financials of Corporate Clients. Looking at 2021, we have lowered the cost base and reduced RWA by a total of EUR 9 billion, and at the same time, kept our revenue stable. Reduced the headcount by 450 full time equivalents, and we are, therefore, ahead of the planned reduction. And overall, this leads to a reduction of our cost/income ratio by 5 percentage points to 75%. As a result, our RoCET increased from minus 4% in 2020 to 7% in 2021. On the basis of the improved cost-to-income ratio and reduced RWA, we are targeting a RoCET of approximately 10% by the end of 2024. And compared to 2020 figures, this is an increase of 14 percentage points. And this, I might say, is a very clear signal for a turnaround. With this, I would like to conclude the presentation. Many thanks for your attention, and over to our CFO, over to Bettina.

Good afternoon to all of you. Let me now provide you with the update of the financial framework of our strategy. The update is based on our annual planning process. In it, we have reviewed our strategy and confirmed the elements -- the key elements and our direction of travel. Compared to last year, our planning has started from a significantly improved basis, thanks to achievements in 2021. Our revenues are EUR 300 million higher, our underlying cost base is EUR 200 million lower and our capital ratio improved by 40 basis points. By starting from this improved basis, our updated targets for 2024 are still based on very prudent assumptions. We had planned with zero interest rates from end of Q3 last year, and assumed that they will be unchanged until the end of 2024. Any potential upside from higher rates, as currently expected by the market, would come on top. For Poland, we had originally assumed interest rate increases to around 80 basis points by 2024. However, there has subsequently been rate hikes in Poland significantly beyond our original expectations. The increases until February 4 are now included in the plan. They lead to additional revenues of EUR 200 million, starting already in 2022. I will cover the upside potential from rates in more detail later on. As on the revenue side, our plan includes additional costs from higher inflation in Poland. This is the reason for the increase of our cost target to EUR 5.4 billion. Concerning the general economic outlook, we have assumed a normalization of the regulatory environment and an ongoing economic recovery. Our economists currently expect German GDP to grow by 3% in 2022. This obviously doesn't include any potential impact from the current Ukraine crisis. We clearly expect the accelerated adoption of digital banking due to the pandemic to continue, and we do not assume any competitive easing in the German banking market. All in all, I firmly believe our improved target of more than 7% return on tangible equity is realistic and achievable. The RoTE target has not factored in any potential benefits from higher euro interest rates. Improved profitability will also further increase our CET1 ratio, raising our potential to return capital to shareholders. Let's move to the next slide and the revenue outlook. In our original plan, we had expected revenues to be slightly lower or flat in 2021 compared to 2020. In fact, we managed to increase revenues by EUR 300 million last year. This elevates the starting point of our revenue bridge to 2024. As detailed by Thomas and Michael, we plan for around EUR 100 million extra revenues from PSBC Germany and around EUR 100 million lower revenues from Corporate Clients. The negative effect of expected churn and focusing of the business model are balanced by business growth with target clients and profitable products. mBank is expected to deliver EUR 600 million revenue growth. This includes the EUR 200 million benefit from higher rates and is in line with mBank's growth track record. The line item reflects the expected development. Most of the increase is in NII driven by mBank. For PSBC Germany, we continue to plan with a drag from the still existing negative rates environment that is offset by growth and pricing. For Corporate Clients, we expect lower revenues from our closure of our own locations and offboarding of noncore, low RWA efficient clients, not fully offset by growth. Expected churn in PSBC is the biggest potential drag on NCI. I'm convinced that we can overcompensate the impact with our respective [ measures ], especially in the securities brokerage business of PSBC, but also by cross-selling in Corporate Clients. With these initiatives, we expect NCI to increase by nearly EUR 200 million. As we have planned prudently, we do see upside potential to our plan. Churn could be lower than anticipated. But as Thomas said, we believe it's too early to revise our planning. We have also seen better growth than expected in 2021. We will be looking for additional opportunities beyond our plan, but we always stick to the rule that profitability trumps growth. In 2021, we benefited from our investments in CommerzVentures, contributing EUR 260 million to revenues. However, the timing of gains can't be reliably predicted. We, therefore, have not assumed any gains in 2024, and above all, we would significantly benefit from euro rate increases. Let's look at the rate potential on the next slide. You will probably all know our interest rate sensitivity from our Q4 disclosure. We have planned with continued low rates, which would lead to a reduction in NII by around EUR 300 million by 2024. When assuming that the forward curve from early February will materialize, NII from deposits at PSBC and Corporate Clients could be EUR 850 million higher than planned. However, we want to see real action by the ECB before including any of this upside in our plans. Having said this, we are already benefiting from the higher 10-year rates. We can currently reinvest model deposits at the higher current market rate. Every month, with higher rates, gives an incremental benefit to NII that will accumulate over time. Let's now look at CommerzVentures. We are very happy with the investments made so far. They have contributed more than EUR 500 million of revenues over the last years. By the nature, returns from venture investments can't be planned for certainty. They usually take several years to mature before reaching their potential. Our first fund has delivered the gains we have seen so far. The second fund is reaching the end of the investment phase and is developing well. We expect gains in due course, but it will take more time to reach its full potential. Building our positive experience and with the established management team of CommerzVentures, we are currently launching a third fund. It has an investable volume of EUR 300 million and should add to revenues over time. As with the first fund, we stick to investments in finance-related start-ups. Having started with fintechs in the first fund, we have extended our investment scope to InsurTech, Climate Fintech, DeFi and other finance-related business model with the second fund. With the third fund, we have committed to a bigger size. This allows us to participate in a larger funding rounds when we see value. Now let's move to costs on the next slide. My colleagues have already touched on the cost savings in their segments. Please note that the savings from head office and operations are allocated to the segments and are reflected in their numbers. Both segments plan to deliver around EUR 600 million in savings each. The staff costs are chiefly lowered by headcount reductions, mainly in Germany, but also by moving work to cheaper locations. Admin expenses are lowered by 3 main drivers: first, the optimization of our IT platforms and the reduction of external IT staff; second, reduction of occupancy costs due to branch closures and streamlining of international locations; and third, increased efficiency in head office and operations. On top of these, we expect a lower European bank levy in 2024. However, it remains to be seen what effect might result from the current consultation initiated by the SRB. As mBank pursues its successful growth path and as we have seen the clear factor of inflation in Poland, we have increased costs by EUR 100 million compared to the original strategy. This is more than compensated by the higher revenues included in the plan. mBank will continue to manage the business on a cost/income ratio of 40% to 50%. More than 6,000 FTEs have already left the bank in 2021 or have signed individual contracts to leave. This is a half of our original plan. With signing and communication of the partial settlement of interest, including all details regarding Strategy 2024 in November 2021, the full range of instruments from the social plan is now available. With this milestone achieved, we will further increase the number of contracted levers and proceed to our gross reduction target of 10,000 FTEs. The aim is to reach agreements by 2023 so that they become fully effective for 2024. This is to ensure the full cost saving effect for 2024. As Manfred already stated, the net reduction has been revised to 7,100 FTEs for the group. There are 3 key drivers for this adjustment. First, the decision to keep securities settlement business in-house. The savings from not paying an external provider cover the cost of the additional staff. Second, the decision to allocate additional tasks to nearshore and offshore locations. This is linked to compensating reductions on vendor costs. And third, further growth at mBank that leads to increased headcount demand and contributes to the planned cost increase at mBank. With these adjustments, we can maintain our cost savings plan while continuing to ensure the high stability of systems and processes and enabling the growth at mBank. This leads to the overall cost path on the next slide. Our cost reduction path until 2024 is characterized by lower costs every year. We are firmly sticking to our reduction plan and are fully focused on implementing our cost measures. By the end of this year, 1/3 of the savings, excluding mBank, will be realized. All the cost figures in the plan already includes the necessary IT investments of EUR 1.7 billion. This EUR 1.7 billion reflects our change the bank projects under 2024. As this is a cash spent number, not all of it directly shows up in P&L. Our average capitalization rate stands at roughly 50%. We have moved some of the cash spend, but have not changed the overall investment budget. The cost target has increased by EUR 100 million due to growth at mBank and higher inflation in Poland. For 2022, we stick to our cost reduction target in Germany. All savings are net of our assumed average cost inflation of around 1.7%. Current general inflation in Germany is significantly above this level. We will closely monitor if this will become persistent and how this will affect our cost base. The biggest potential driver is the ongoing reach negotiation for the German banking sector, but the negotiations are currently stalled. We hope to get more clarity in due course. To be perfectly clear, with our Strategy 2024, we aim for a competitive cost-to-income ratio. For me, this is a cost-to-income ratio of 60% as targeted for 2024. If inflation turns out higher than planned, we will look at further measures to compensate the inflationary effects and reach the 60% target. We would have more flexibility if revenues are higher than planned due to interest rate increases as expected by the market. This would give us potential headroom on the cost side, but we want to see clear evidence of higher rates first. Now let's look very briefly at the restructuring charges and the risk result. We have nearly completely booked the EUR 2 billion charges, only around EUR 17 million are still outstanding. The remaining charges relate mainly to real estate. We can only book these charges when the formal requirements for location closures are met. From the risk results, we do not predict any unusual burden. We plan with a normalized risk result of around 25 basis points for the planning horizon. This is the level we had pre-pandemic. Manfred has already given you an overview of our Russia-related exposures. There are surely some financial burdens resulting from the crisis, but it's too early to quantify them given the uncertainty, how it will evolve. We have kept the top-level adjustment of around EUR 500 million available to cover potentially remaining pandemic-related effects. It could also help to cover effects of the Russian crisis. This gives us some comfort that we can reach our targets. Let's now look at our updated bridge to the operating results and our targets. The improved revenues lead to an operating result that is EUR 300 million higher than our original target. The cost-to-income ratio will improve to 60%, and our LTE will be at 7.3% when paying a dividend with a 30% payout ratio. I want to stress again that any upside from higher rates would come on top of our targets. Reaching the LTE target depends not only on the proved operating result, but also on RWA and capital management. On the next slide, I will therefore go through our RWA plan. We work with RWAs that are on the level of the original plan, but it was a different allocation. FRTB has been postponed to 2025, and therefore, we expect lower market risk RWAs in 2024. At the same time, we expect higher credit risk RWAs. The main drivers are model changes and delayed improvements in ratings in Corporate Clients. These will add 7 billion RWAs that will be largely offset by RWA management of EUR 5 billion. Net credit RWAs of CC will be around EUR 2 billion higher. In 2025, we expect to see the delayed improvement in ratings, compensating the delayed effect of higher RWA from FRTB. In PSBC, we assume lower RWAs than originally planned as we expect less growth in consumer loans. Instead, revenue growth will come from products that generate fewer RWAs. These are wealth management and investment products, mortgages and loans to small business customers. RWAs in Others and Consolidation will be reduced by EUR 6 billion. To remind you, around half of the current EUR 33 billion credit RWAs result from long-term legacy positions. The remainder is mainly due to the liquidity portfolio and RWAs for DTA. Overall, we expect risk-weighted assets of EUR 182 billion by 2024. We start with a CET1 ratio of 13.6%, well above the 13.2% we had in 2020. Our MDA is currently at 9.4%. It's predicted to increase to 10.2% from countercyclical and sector-specific buffers. With currently more than 400 basis points above the MDA, we feel also very well positioned for any potential impacts from Russia. With our Strategy 2024 and retained earnings, we will build further CET1. Our CET1 ratio should increase to 14.8% on a pro forma basis, assuming an annual dividend payout ratio of 30%. This clearly results in excess capital on top of our 200 to 250 basis point buffer above MDA. We are convinced at least 200 to 250 basis points are the wide buffer for our business model. So let me close with our thoughts on capital distribution. Manfred has already presented our dividend and capital return policy with the Q4 results. After distributing dividends with a 30% payout ratio, our strategy delivers a return of 7.3% at a CET1 ratio of 14.8%. This is a clear improvement of our original plan. Our CET1 ratio will be around 100 basis points higher at the same capital distribution level. Thanks to the strong capital creation and given our target buffer above the MDA, we have the potential to not only pay a dividend. In total, we can distribute EUR 3 billion to EUR 5 billion to shareholders, a significant improvement. The instruments can be higher dividends or share buyback, which are subject to receiving the prior permission of the ECB. We know that the latter is an attractive instrument given the valuation of our shares. However, we need to have a second year of improved returns as a proof point for the success of our strategy before considering buybacks. On this slide, we have won the math to provide you with a sense of the capital that could be eligible for distribution, if our plan works out. A capital return of EUR 3 billion would translate into a CET1 ratio of 13.9% and a return on tangible equity of 7.6%. The distribution of EUR 5 billion lifts the return to 8.1% and still reflects the CET1 ratio of 12.8%, which represents a 250 basis point buffer to our expected 2024 MDA. The potential for higher dividends or buybacks will become fully visible in 2023. Any return, obviously, depends on many future factors and requires concrete resolutions of the relevant bodies. But our aim is clear. We want to provide attractive returns for our shareholders, and this includes the distribution of capital, and I'm absolutely convinced we can achieve this. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you for your attention. Before we go into a short break, let me give some information to those who want to raise questions in the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] We will be back in 10 minutes and are looking forward to answering your questions. [Break]

Welcome back to our Capital Markets Day. We're all looking forward to your questions and the discussion in our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions]

And now let's start. The first question comes from Benjamin Goy from Deutsche Bank.

Two questions, please. First, on the revenue guidance. The EUR 400 million upgrade seems to come entirely from other income. I was wondering why you didn't increase the net interest income guidance with the Polish rate hike tailwind or for example, the fee income, which has been on a very good run continuously. And then secondly, just to double check on the cost, did you say 1.7% gross cost inflation is assumed? Or 1.7% wage inflation is assumed? And if you could give us a sensitivity, maybe what is 1 percentage point of higher wage inflation for the German workers in terms of euro million, of course, if somewhat insensitivity will be great.

Yes. Benjamin, thank you for your questions. So on the revenue guidance, good catch. I mean the revenue increase has clearly taken place in NCI and NII as we have also seen that in the 2020 fund results. And they are basically the updated basis for then the revenue bridge. The switch has taken place in 2024 because we had parked last year the whole churn assumptions in other income and that one we have now redistributed in the 2024 targets to NCI and NII. That's the whole reason. And the second point on cost inflation, it's cost inflation in total, so 1.7%. And the 1% increase, I mean it depends a little bit whether you just take the pay scale workers, the pay scale employees or whether you take the complete staff. But you can assume that this is a medium-sized double-digit cost number, which you could expect as additional costs year-on-year.

And the next question also via Teams comes from Izabel Dobreva from Morgan Stanley.

So firstly, I had a question on costs, and it's actually a follow-up to the previous one. If I go through the cost guidance, it looks like the German retail costs have been worsened by EUR 100 million, and at the same time, the Corporate Clients have been improved by EUR 100 million. So the question is really twofold: firstly, what level of wage inflation are you assuming domestically in retail? And secondly, where are the savings -- additional savings in Corporate Clients coming from? And then my second question is on capital return. I was very intrigued by one of the comments right at the start of the presentation that now you intend to pay out more than perhaps you expected a year ago, and these plans have been discussed with the regulator. And I realize this is all conditional on the success of restructuring, of course. But in principle, would you feel comfortable paying over 100% of profit? And in principle, would the regulator be fine with you paying out as much as EUR 5 billion?

Well, thanks, Izabel, for your questions. So first question on cost, I said that in the speech that the cost reduction with respect to head office and operations have been also allocated to the 2 segments. And what's happened here is that there was a reallocation. So basically, there was reallocation of costs between Corporate Clients and Private Clients. So overall, the cost targets stay the same, but it was just -- yes, reshuffling to say like that. And the second point on capital return, it's basically -- I mean we have a dividend policy out there, 30% to 50%. We clearly -- and this is aligned with the regulator, same with the share buybacks, the potential share buybacks, and we will see over time how we deal with it. I mean you could also think about special dividends, et cetera. If you just assume in 2022, 30%; in 2023, 50%; and then a special dividend in 2024 of 75%, you will add the numbers and you come something in the direction of EUR 2.6 billion already. So really the EUR 3 billion, the lower level of the things. And then we still have the instrument out there of the share buybacks where we have already the approval for the first 10% by the AGM, and we can always ask for more.

And now we have a question from the webcast, basically, and it is from Ms. Hadia Guergouri from Allianz Global Investors. And the question reads, how do current events, geopolitical events, affect the international trade business? And I guess this question goes to Michael, I'd say.

Yes, thank you for the questions. Certainly, the actual development is not helpful at all. But actually, it's too early to tell, and it really does depend how long this crisis will last. So for us now, we're watching the situation closely, but again, too early to tell what consequences it might have.

Thank you, Michael. And we just have another one from the webcast, and it comes from Daniele Brupbacher from UBS. Daniele is asking, the EUR 5.4 billion and EUR 3.8 billion NII and fee revenue 2024 haven't changed. Other income went from minus EUR 0.5 billion to minus EUR 0.1 billion. What is the rationale behind that? As I read it, I believe, Bettina, you just had this question. But maybe you'll spend just 2 or 3 sentences on this before we move on.

But I think I just answered when Benjamin asked exactly the same question. So it's really the allocation -- reallocation of churn assumptions to NCI and NII is the short answer.

And now we switch back to the Teams session, and the next question via teams comes from Nicholas Herman from Citigroup.

Yes. I hope you can hear me right. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to turn my camera on. Apologies for that. Two questions from me, please. First -- actually, both on PSBC. You're assuming the same level of churn as the original plan, and you're assuming no European -- no euro rate hikes. So can you clarify where the additional EUR 200 million higher revenue is coming from? Is it -- presumably, a lot -- part of it or a lot of it is coming from higher fee and commission from higher securities balances? Is there anything else? That's the first question. And then the second question is, you've clearly scaled back your targets in consumer finance, but I was surprised to not even see one mention of consumer finance in this presentation. So is that kind of the end of your ambitions, so to speak, as of today -- as we are resigning today?

So maybe I can take the questions. Thanks a lot for the question. To answer the second question first, no, it's not the end. We are heavily working on redesigning the consumer finance topic. And as I said in my presentation, this has to be online. So we are really working on a very convenient client journey together with the colleagues from [ DO ] and from the IT organization. So we definitely will come back with a solution for clients, especially also in the consumer finance topic. I hope I got your first question right. So I think the most important topic for the upcoming months will be, on the one hand side, the mortgage business. We see strong demand from clients in that area. I hope we can keep our margin high in that area. And the second growth will be, as I said, from the security business with our premium and wealth management clients. One comment on churn. I think we have a very realistic picture on the churn because in 2022, this will be the first year with the full new setup. So that means that we close another 100 branches. So that means that we are reducing once again the footstep, and this will lead to that some of the clients who are very focused on branches, maybe we'll leave with the daily banking. And that's the reason why we are very careful about an update of the churn quote.

If I could just have a follow-up, please. So the original target was for EUR 3.9 billion of German PSBC revenues in 2024. You're now targeting EUR 4.1 billion, even though you do not assume higher euro rates, you do not assume a better outcome on churn. So the incremental EUR 200 million, is that coming from fee and commission on the back of higher securities? Or what else is it?

Yes, it will come from fee income. Security and fee commission income.

And now we turn over and try the third path to the room here, which is the audio line, the telephone line. And I have on my list Hugo Cruz from KBW.

So I'll ask on the exposure to Russia, Ukraine and the large. Obviously, it's very difficult to answer this, but when do you expect to have some visibility on the potential losses from that exposure? And how much equity do you have in the Moscow subsidiary that you mentioned in the slide? And then my second question is around what impact do you expect from Basel IV or the regulatory headwinds after 2024?

So Hugo, thanks very much. So I mean, the first question is very tough to answer. I mean we are currently analyzing as probably everybody else the situation. It's very difficult. It also very much depends on potential countermeasures of Russia, et cetera. And we are carefully monitoring the situation, implementing currently all the measures necessary to be compliant with sanctions and other measures. And I'm pretty sure, however, we will have clarity over the next couple of weeks. So it will be a very interesting, unfortunately, Q1 for most of us, and then we would probably have a much better guidance on that. And it clearly also depends on the further development of the crisis and potential negotiations ongoing. The Eurasija subsidiary, we have equity of a little bit more than EUR 300 million in there, to answer this. Part of the question on Basel IV. I mean for us, at least the time horizon we currently look at until 2025, 2026, Basel IV impact is very, very limited, given the current draft of regulation.

And now it's on the Teams' line again. It is Johannes Thormann from HSBC.

So 2 questions from my side. First of all, a question for Michael Kotzbauer, regarding Slide 31. I'm a bit puzzled with the reduction of less efficient RWAs just to 22%. I would have expected, in a revised strategy, probably a stronger reduction because this is value destructive business overall. Why can't you exit so much of your business? And why is more than 20% of your business so sticky again? Probably, can you elaborate a bit on that? And secondly, for Thomas Schaufler, you elaborated on the highly rated Commerzbank and comdirect online digital tools. How do you compare those -- the tools [indiscernible] you've known so the well-known and highly rated [ George ] platform?

So Johannes, thanks for the question. As we already outlined a few times, we will always have -- in a normal portfolio distribution, we will always have assets lower than average profitability. Clients, we are in an investment phase. So they were clearly below this curve, and this is like the bell-shaped curve. So we always will have those in the portfolio. If we would forgo on business potential out of this portfolio, we would basically decline in client franchise and damaging the client franchise seriously. So this is the reason why we always have a part of the RWA invested below 22%, so below 3% efficiency. Clearly, the goal is to foster those lines than above this line, but as I outlined also last time, we'll obviously see a proportion of the RWAs being below 22%.

I will take the second question when it comes to comparison of the online and apps. So first of all, when it comes to brokerage, we are far ahead of [indiscernible]. So comdirect is really offering a state-of-the-art brokerage and trading platform, and I think it's really a #1 in the German market. When it comes to the normal app for daily banking, I think we are in the same way like [indiscernible] with George. We started with information towards the client. So that means that we give him 24/7 information about his daily life. Now we start to intake much more. I had in my presentation that we have 250 campaigns. And now we start to really talk to the client on an individual basis. So that means that we now started an digital advice. So that we tell the clients with the financial compass, which will go online hopefully in the second quarter this year, how he can or she can improve his daily life, his daily financial life. And there I think we are on the same track like Erste, maybe a little bit behind but on the same track.

And the next question by our teams comes from Kian Abouhossein from JPMorgan. We cannot hear you, unfortunately, Kian. We can see you, but not hear you.

Yes, apologies. The first question comes just coming back to regulatory approval on buybacks or capital return, I shall say. Can you explain a little bit more what really the detailed processes that you have with regulators? Because when I read your slides, you say clearly, your share buybacks are subject to receive in the prior permission of the ECB. So do you have any agreement with them at this point? Or are you making that assumption that you can pay back if you reach your targets? I just want to get a bit more meat, if I may, in respect to capital return, EUR 3 billion to EUR 5 billion? So second question is just on deposit betas. You assume 0 and I wanted to get a little bit more of an understanding what your mass is behind your 0 deposit beta that you're assuming?

Okay. On, yes, what is the process is? First of all, I think most important prerequisite is that we deliver against our targets and that we implement our transformation targets, that's number one, and that we basically see the operating result we currently forecast. So that's pretty prerequisite number one. Prerequisite number 2 is that we -- or it's not a prerequisite, it's a fact that as long as we have capital ratios as we forecast, we are very free in our dividend policy, meaning that we can basically discuss that and align with Supervisory Board and then propose a payout ratio for AGM, very clear process. And as long as we stick to all capital requirements, also there is no approval by regulatory authorities necessary. When it comes to share buyback, it is indeed the case that whenever we decide to do so and we said that probably 2022 is not the right timing to think about it, but rather we start thinking about it in 2022, when we see how we have progressed that we then start a dialogue with the regulatory authorities. First, we have a dialogue with our Supervisory Board and then with the regulatory authorities. And then we will announce that because we have already the approval for the first 10% by the AGM. So we need not to go back to AGM for the first 10% share buyback. That's important to note. And I mean, we can see it in the market that ECB is going to discuss share buybacks given that there have been a number of peers now. They have already done some share buybacks or have announced for the near future share buybacks. So it's all about delivery and execution. And if we deliver and execute, we can also move down the road. And on the deposit beta, yes, we assume 0. I have to say for the Eurozone. The case why we stick with mBank with the EUR 200 million in the name of additional revenue potential while we see some increase of freight is just due to the fact that we believe that there will be an increase in deposit beta visible in the coming weeks and months. On the Eurozone side, if you look at the forward rates that we have assumed, which is beginning of February, the interest rate level is still below 1%. So our assumption is that this is just a too low level that you're really entering into deposit beta discussions or that the market moves in this direction. That's the whole assumption behind that.

The next question now is from the webcast again, and it is the second part of Daniele Brupbacher from UBS, and it reads: If benefits of higher rates were to come through, how would you model marginal cost income ratio levels, i.e., how much higher would cost be? It feels like you can't get one without the other or can you?

Yes, Daniele, good question. I mean, part of it -- I mean it's linked, as we all know. I mean, why is -- used to be thinking or considering interest rate increases just because we also see inflation, and therefore, we also see an increase of cost levels. And that's also what we currently observe with mBank. So we see substantial revenue increases on the one side, but we also see cost increases. And that is very tough to say because -- and that's what I also said in the speech, I mean, we will clearly observe what's happening. And whenever we know something for real, then we will include that in our plans. And if there will be -- based on the current negotiations about the wage level here in Germany, if there will be an agreement we will take that into account in our plans. And dependent on the situation of the revenue side, we will also consider additional efficiency measures because, as I said, the clear target is a competitive cost/income ratio. If there are rate increases and revenue increases, then most likely we will also have in parallel some cost increases. But I'm pretty sure, and we also know that from mBank that they will be at a much lower cost income level than we see on average. They are partly correlated, but we also have to partly take them separate from each other.

The next question comes via Teams again, and it is from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca.

I hope you can hear me well. Two questions, if I may. The first one is on TLTRO. What kind of role does TLTRO have in this plan? What do you expect the ECB to do on that front? And the second question I have is a bit more -- maybe a bit more technical. In 2020, your annual report was reporting that you have not basically booked any deferred tax assets for tax loss carryforwards on corporate tax and federal law and trade tax for roughly EUR 10 billion. This just looking at the amount that can be carried forward for an unlimited period. This doesn't seem to have any kind of role in what you have in this plan. I was wondering what is going to happen to this theoretically fairly large amount of tax loss carryforwards that you have not booked that probably because maybe your probability tax that does not allow to book, what is happening there?

Okay. Clearly, probably 2 questions for me. Thanks, Riccardo. First on TLTRO. The assumption element in our plan is that ECB will end the TLTRO at least with these improved conditions where we benefited from this year. So the only thing which you have in our guidance for 2022 is the EUR 87 million from the second program, which we expect to come in and which we will book in Q1 and Q2. The rest is all booked or has been booked in 2021, and we have not assumed any continuation of the program. And I think it all depends now how the situation is developing and what ECB is really doing, but we didn't plan anything. On the second point, which is a really technical question I have to say. I mean in 2021, you may have seen that we have booked and activated quite some DTAs. And that's the reason for that was that -- because we have a 5-year planning period, it's all concerning Germany where you also have this unlimited element in there. And what we have is the situation that we -- when we were in 2020, we still had a 2021 loss year in there, and it went then to 2024. Now we basically exchanged a loss year and took it away into a very profitable year 2022 as we have guided more than EUR 1 billion net income and added another year where we also believe that we are north of 7% ROTE. And that has a reason that we had an activation of DTAs. But as you also know, there are limits and our limits are that we always take into account a 5-year time frame, and that's basically also assumed in our plans.

And now we move on again by our Teams with Anke Reingen from RBC.

Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation. I just wanted to follow up on NII. And just to understand, given your plan doesn't include any rate wise. So should we basically assume the EUR 5.4 billion still incorporates on Slide 39 the headwinds, so the EUR 300 million by 2024? And you mentioned that higher loan rates would already give you some benefit without the ECB rate. So where would we be on that 2024 number if you just would take the higher loan rates into account? And just sorry, 1 small question on the TLTRO. Am I right in assuming you don't adjust in your 2021 starting base by the TLTRO benefit? And then sorry, second question is on the dividend. I mean, I see all the chart about sensitivity, but I get the impression for 2022 that the EUR 1 billion profit is very important to -- for your 30% payout ratio. So if you don't make the EUR 1 billion, which I mean on a reported basis could be a possibility given potential Russia markdowns. Is the 30% payout ratio off the table?

Thanks, Anke. On NII, I mean, we have included the full EUR 300 million drag in 2024. That's basically the short answer. The longer, higher rates, it's -- I mean it's -- we didn't really -- I mean, we see it now as an upside day by day, but we haven't included that one in the plan for 2024. So that is basically also part of the EUR 850 million logic which you have seen on this 1 page. On the TLTRO, if you take the starting base revenues, we set adjusted revenue phase and that is adjusted by everything what you can think of as extraordinary, so TLTRO, Swiss franc and also the CommerzVentures and stuff like that. So the best thing when we -- when -- as a definition for adjusted revenues, you can just look in the analyst presentation 2 weeks ago, where we had this bridge 2020 and 2021 and where we showed basically the revenues clean of any extraordinaries externally reported, but also some internal ones. And that's the right basis. And then on your last question, I mean it's too early to say. We have clearly the target to deliver the larger than EUR 1 billion. We clearly monitor the situation. As we start, there will be, unfortunately, hits, you should not forget and that is a comfortable situation we currently have that we have our TLA of more than EUR 500 million, which is there, which we can also use. And talking now about what would we do if net income is less than EUR 1 billion or something like that, it's just too early. We are very committed to our plans. We deliver. The year has started nicely, and now we closely have to monitor the situation. And I said earlier, I think Q1 will be decisive. We will see a lot of things happening, and we will know when everybody went through the papers, et cetera, what the real impact is. And I mean we have shown on this first slide with our overall impact is. And you can clearly see that we have luckily enough potential to absorb that if there is a hit.

And the next question via Teams comes from Stuart Graham from Autonomous.

I had a couple of questions, please. I guess 1 for Mr. Knof and one for Bettina. For Mr. Knof, I guess, geopolitical questions. Mr. Scholz on Sunday in his speech signaled a major change in German policy on defense, energy, et cetera. What, if anything, does that open up as business opportunities for Commerzbank? And I guess linked in to geopolitics. Obviously, you own a big Polish bank and I guess we have all just learned that the risk premium in Central and Eastern Europe is higher than we thought, unfortunately. What, if anything, does that mean in terms of the ROE you look for from mBank to compensate you've got a higher risk of being active in Central and Eastern Europe? So that's question one. Question 2 then is for Bettina. On the share buybacks and dividends. I mean, if I do the math, I can't get to EUR 5 billion, the 50% payout, plus your 10% share buyback limit are like EUR 3.5 billion tops, I think. So when you've talked to ECB, are they okay with GBP 5 billion if that involves special dividends? And I think you've be mentioned that or have just said, you can do 50% and you can do the buyback maximum 10% and that limits you to EUR 3.6 billion, even though you may want to do EUR 5 billion?

Yes, Stuart. Let me start with your first question. It's true that was a fundamental change in German policy, what we've seen on Sunday in TV. I think on the 1 hand, it's too early to say, okay, are they immediately other new business model and opportunities out of this. I mean one thing is absolutely clear. What we said before, we are at the side of our customers and we are we are at the side of our customers at all places. And as you know, even the German defense corporates and -- we are supporting them and -- as far as their CO2 footprint is in line what we basically said and we follow them. It is clear that there will be now more investments in the defense industry here in Germany, and they're all our clients. I mean this is definitely a good basis. We know them, they know us, and I think they will talk to us for further investments. Even on the energy, I mean, it's clear that even the transformation and the green energy becomes even more important right now. And therefore, I mean, we are 1 of the leaders here in the sustainable bonds. We have good technologies and good teams here ready for this area. And we are looking forward to push even further in the transformation of this very important project here for Germany. And I think we feel ready and this bank is ready to support and to finance this transformation here in the energy. And the Polish bank, yes, we need to see. We have adjusted the plants here on the Polish side, and so mBank is developing nicely into our plans. Bettina?

Yes. So -- just -- I mean, to note, mBank is working on a cost/income ratio of 40% to 50% earning. If you take Swiss franc provisioning aside they are also earning cost of capital in normal years. So -- but mostly monitor also the situation with respect to risk premiums. On share buybacks, I mean, it's a good question. You did the right math. I mean, first of all, the EUR 3 billion to EUR 5 billion is really the potential we see based on the -- on our capital planning on the 1 side, the profits we plan and then if we take over 200, 250 basis points buffer above MDA, which we believe is a good number and also very comparable to peers. And now there are a lot of ways on to how you can do it. And clearly, some requires approval of the regulatory authorities, some not. And as I said already before, you can think about the dividends as we have now laid out in our dividend and capital return policy which is then 30%, 50%, 50%. You could also think about a 30-50 and then a special dividend 75%, which leaves us already to EUR 2.6 billion payout without any share buybacks, no necessity to ask for approval because we would still be -- we would touch a dividend policy, and we believe in our plans, we would be at a capital ratio of 14.2%. So that would be still a very convenient number, I would say, for 2024. And then we have the additional potential for share buybacks where clearly, we need to go back to ECB, and they will be only open to talk to us if we really have delivered against the plan. But then we could do the first 10%, we could do 1, 2, 3 share buybacks in the year. If we want to do more, we also would need to go back to AGM, which we hope are also possible because we have an AGM in 2023, and we have an AGM in 2024 to ask for more. So there are lots of ways on how we can do it. And as I said before, the first thing is now deliver.

Focus on the 3% to 5% rather than the exact mechanism of how it's done, yes?

Yes.

And the next question comes from the United States from New York. It's from Roy Adams from metronuclear.

At last year's event, I stated that we at metronuclear were favorably impressed with the leadership, skill and planning of Manfred Knof and Bettina Orlopp and that we had confidence in the bank's new strategy. Clearly, our confidence is very well placed with the bank's results in full year 2021 and the outlook for 2022. Certainly, if the geopolitical backdrop was more pleasant, we'd be more celebratory. But I do want to say a job well done by the team, and please keep up the good work as a shareholder, a very important message to communicate. Two questions quickly. First, on valuation and second on buybacks. Why do you believe the market continues to assign Commerzbank such a low valuation ratio compared to your peers. The bank is -- shares are trading at roughly 9x forward earnings, 1/3 of tangible book value in spite your accelerated transformation progress. What's driving that? And then on buybacks, will Commerzbank consider so-called direct buybacks from the Bund in the same vein as NatWest is currently buying back its shares from the U.K. government has?

Yes. Thank you. I will start and then Bettina will add on that. With regard to the share buybacks from the government. So we cannot comment on possible federal plans for future treatment of the stake in Commerzbank and what they're planning to do. Of course, we're closely monitoring the developments. We are interested in an exchange with our major shareholder. But at the end of the day, it's the government's decision what they do when and if. And I think at the moment, might also they have other things on the table right now. With regard to the valuation, I think we have seen a nicely development over the -- yes, the beginning of the year and the last weeks. And I think it's all about delivery and execution. And thank you very much for your nice word, but it's true. It's -- for us, it's all about execution and delivery. And the better we do, the longer we deliver quarter-by-quarter. We're absolutely convinced that we close the gap to the peers and our valuation will be even better.

And the next one via Teams comes from Jeremy Sigee from Exane.

I hope I'm coming through clearly. I really want to ask 2 questions about digitization because it's such a key part of the plan, and we've obviously got Thomas and Michael here. So really one for each. On the Mittelstandsbank, I was surprised that you only have 24% of your customers in digital banking. I was surprised how low that was. Maybe that's the definitional point that some of them are using another system or something. But 24% surprised me. And I just wondered what changes do you have to make to get that to 100% as you're planning? So that's my question on the corporate side. And then on the retail side, you talk about comdirect and the competence that it has. And I just wondered what linkages you're building now between the retail bank and comdirect, either in terms of business cooperation or system sharing or skilled sharing, just how that dynamic is working and what more can be done?

Jeremy, thank you for the question. I think Thomas, I'll take the first one, right, on CC. So it's a mixture of -- it's on both. It's of bringing clients to digital channels, but it's also standardizing digitizing products, as we said. I mean this is what we started in the beginning of '21, to standardize our products and processes and digitize them. And that's exactly what we're doing and then basically bring all the clients to those processes. So this is what we do preferably in the direct banking proposition. I mean we talked about this one, right, bringing 1,000 clients into the direct banking pilot and now rolling it out to 6,000 clients. So the number of 24% is a mix of both things. So we're standardizing, digitizing the standardized process. As Thomas said, we are not digitizing the all processes and products. We're doing the standardizing first and then digitizing it. And then basically, we activate our direct banking users to those standards and those products. But as I said, in 2024 we'll have full access to -- for all our clients to the digital world of MSB.

Yes, I will take the question about comdirect. First of all, all the new things we are now doing will done once. So together with comdirect and Commerzbank for 1 platform so that clients of both lines can benefit. What we learned from comdirect is very important for our temporary remote center is that they have an excellent support line via the telephone. So the first time we will completely copy that for the remote center, which we taking place this year. And last but not least, comdirect was always able to find a very quick and very convenient way to fulfill the client needs, and that's also we build copy as we will take out a lot of complexity out of Commerzbank, be much more client focused and to have much more speed when it comes to time to market because comdirect was always leading in that area, and we will copy that.

And now we have the second slot on the audio line, and it is again from Hugo Cruz from KBW.

Just a quick question on corporate clients. It was mentioned the possibility of securitizations to reduce the RWA intensity. I imagine some of that is already inbuilt into the plan. But in terms of additional securitization, can you give us an estimate of the potential impact, both on RWAs and on revenues?

Well, first of all, we are clearly, we will look at this in '22, as I said in my speech and also -- but we are not decided yet. So this is -- first of all, this is what we -- we also looked at this in '21. And you also basically didn't do it in '21, and we keep on looking at it in 2022. And this is basically -- and we see then an impact of, let's say, roughly will be an impact of 0.2 RWA efficiency. And when you look at Rocket it will be close to a 2% boost on this acquisition. So this is basically what we want to see at C level, by the way. But again, we still basically will look at the markets. We still like the overall situation. We look at our loan books and then we decide if we do this acquisition or not for '22.

And now we switch to the webcast again. And I have a question from [ Michel Vukuzich ] from [ Nevo Consulting ], a question directed to Bettina. It reads CommerzVentures, one, do you plan to invest only directly into fintech insurtech companies, et cetera, or also via VC funds, venture capital funds, covering your investment strategy, Fintech, InsureTech, ClimaTech, Fintech, blockchain, crypto and DP-based business models? And number two, any regional preference focus and/or exclusion?

Yes, [ Michel ], thank you. So first of all, I mean, our standard approach is really investing directly. However, now in the second fund, we use twice the opportunity to also invest your fund. One was related to DP. One was related to a regional -- a new region with some Africa because there it's just as a new entry easier to get index or opportunities via fund. But regular basis is really direct investments. And with respect to our regional preferences, if you look on our investments, majority is in Europe and selective investments in the U.S. And we're now starting to explore Africa. Asia is not really on our landmark or landscape at the moment.

And now the next question via Teams, again, from Izabel Dobreva from Morgan Stanley.

Firstly, I had a question for Dr. Knof. You have been in charge of Commerzbank for about a year now, and we are 1 year into the transformation. So what would you say are the main lessons learned looking back over the past year? Has there been anything which has surprised you been easier to achieve or more challenging to achieve relative to the original plan, specifically, I'm thinking about the restructuring and the cost rather than the revenue side? And in that vein, how would you rank the sources of cost savings in terms of where you feel you have the highest visibility and the highest conviction in terms of execution risk? And then my other question is for Mr. Kotzbauer, and specifically Slide 31. We have spoken a lot about the reduction of the unproductive RWA. But the other interesting thing about that slide is that the RWAs yielding over 5% have now increased quite substantially. So could you give us some color on the strategies you have employed to achieve that and some examples of the changes you have implemented?

Yes. Izabel, let me start with your question. So yes, I think it's important to say that this is 1 of the biggest and largest transformation programs which has ever been launched in the German financial services industry. . 10,000 people, that means every third employee in Germany will need to leave the bank. On the one hand, that really hurts and is difficult. And on the other hand, you need to discuss it with all the bodies. I think we have managed that and that was a positive surprise. We managed that calmly without any big noises in the press or outside, so that is also a showcase that even in Germany, this kind of very difficult transformation also for the employee representatives and the unions it's possible to negotiate and we find the solutions if there are a lot of difficult topics and decisions. If you go for such a long program about 3 years is not that everything is set in stone and you have an automatic wheel and everything is developing according to plan. And we have seen that also last year, and you know that on the securities business. I think -- but then when it counts, it comes to the power and the execution and the capabilities of the management team here, and I'm very pleased about that. So whenever you have problems, it's our job to mitigate those risks. And it's absolutely clear that not everything will go according to plan. We will also face other challenges this year and next year. Of course, this is a normal course in such a program. But then it depends that we mitigate the risks, but it's also clear that we stick to our targets, and it's a job of everybody here to mitigate risks and to find a solution. So, so far, I'm very pleased to say that we have delivered and that's the only way we will gain credibility on the markets back and show that there is full trust in Commerzbank. And so therefore, I'm positively surprised but we all know that challenges will be ahead and we need to mitigate them.

So Izabel, so the question on the RWA portfolio. Indeed, we managed to I would say this has increased also the positive or above 3% RWA buckets. And this is why we managed to have increased the overall RWA efficiency from 3.2% to 3.8%. And how we did it? First of all, we intensely trained our sales force. The first thing. Second thing, we do heavily use sales analytics for this. So for example, we introduced a smart pricing tool to our rollout of smart price to our sales force, where our sales force basically can see exactly what room they have for pricing out of historic data and market data. So this is something that really basically puts the sales force, the relationship manager in a position to, I would say, on basis of knowledge discussed with the clients on adequate margins. Second thing is also with the help of sales analytics. We are implementing and we're putting sales leads to the sales opportunities through the relation managers where cross-sell potential is available. And thirdly, and this is also what we did, just to give you a concrete example. We were reducing and ultimately help in sales analytics, reducing open credit lines, annual credit lines. And we did price our new credit lines with our clients also with the help and empowered by sales analytics. So a lot of this basically has been on clear training of our sales force and introduction of heavily of sales analytics. And the good thing is also, when you look at cross-sell being awarded to Commerzbank, this not only is a German thing, but I'm also really happy to say and I second the feel that our clients to really support our strategy, not only in Germany but also international markets that also our international corporate within the strategy, awarding us to a higher extent, cross-sell.

Next one now is from the webcast again. It's again, Daniele Brupbacher from UBS, and it reads: How do you model volume growth and margins in the relevant subareas in PSBC and corporate clients? And can you give more detailed revenue and cost targets for mBank and the center?

I think when it comes to the private client and small business plans then I think we changed completely our strategy from just growing with cost-free accounts. I think we will invest, as I said before, especially in advising our clients, especially in smart solutions when it comes to the online business. We will incentivize our clients when it comes to using our digital offerings. Then we can talk about make something for free. But what we did in the past just grow and taking new clients with free accounts, we will stop. When it comes to the security business, we see that we have to add value to the clients then they are willing to pay. But we see also that the margin pressure also in the security business is growing like hell. And that's the reason, was also in the presentation, that will come up with new products, with new services like private equity towards our clients. So that means that we will focus on profitability more than growth.

Well, when it comes to corporate clients, almost alike. So on the loan side, we estimate a growth of 2% to 3% per annum. We -- I was talking about the increased RWA efficiency. So we do this well, the first action we take is look at RWA efficiency, also new transactions we have. Certainly, we will grow. We will reinvest RWA, as I said, and target is, I would say, around 2% to 3% on profitable growth and profitability is the decisive element of growing, as I outlined before on the RWA pages.

Yes. On tariffs on corporate center, some light on that. I mean, we said back last year that the cost reduction, the gross cost reduction or net cost reduction of EUR 1.4 billion that approximately 50% can be allocated to corporate center on operations. That has not changed, meaning that now we have left EUR 1.3 billion cost reduction net term approximately 50% will stem from corporate center and operations. And with respect to mBank, I mean, if you look on our publication last week, you see mBank [Audio Gap] count back basically, the EUR 600 million provisions. They have shown a revenue base from approximately EUR 1.3 billion. Cost base of a little bit less than EUR 700 million risk result and you can then assume what happened until 2024, the strong growth, which we have also shown here in the presentation, but also growth on the cost side, given inflation, given also an increase in compulsory contributions, which we expect there plus also costs which are basically driven by the additional growth in clients, et cetera. So overall, however, still mBank its target in a cost/income ratio of approximately 40%.

And the next one now is via Teams again, and it is from Riccardo Rovere from Mediobanca.

One maybe for Mr. Schaufler. When it comes to the loan growth in your division, you have been fairly successful in mortgages and at some extent, also in consumer finance, how important do you think was having rates at so low level. So that buying house was actually much maybe more convenient than renting in Germany? And if I understand it correctly, maybe Bettina before stated that you expect lower growth in consumer finance than in the original plan, the one-off 1 year ago. And I was wondering why was that? And a similar question for Mr. Kotzbauer. Is the decline in the loan book in your division come to an end, aside from the movement in RWA migrations, improving efficiency, the book, the loan book and it comes to an end, the decline?

Yes, thanks for your question. When it comes to mortgages, yes, you're completely right. The prices are rising like hell. And yes, it helps the lower rates. So many people shifted also the money from saving accounts into buying houses, flats and then taking mortgages for that. So yes, that's helped a lot. Besides that, you have in Germany, quite a low number of people owning their own house or a flat. So also that helped. On the other side, yes, unfortunately, consumer loans is not so performing like we expected. The reason is that we have a quite complex online journey. This will change over the upcoming months, improve that. And I'm also quite convinced that via the advisory remote center, we will put in focus on consumer finance, beside that the COVID crisis didn't help in that area. So people were very conservative spending money. That's the reason why also this consumer lending was quite below our expectations.

Well, for corporate clients, Riccardo, the question is twofold. In Germany, actually, we are growing our loan book, as I outlined, and this is the clear goal and clear target to further grow in loans. Internationally, as we do, the strategic fit and if we still basically exit noncore clients, we will -- certainly, we'll see a further reduction on the loan book on the international side, and this will continue this year and next year, and then will pick up then. Overall in CC, we will see a growing loan book until 2024.

And now via Teams again, Stuart from Autonomous.

A couple of questions on the Russia slide, please. I guess, for Mr. Kotzbauer. What can you do to stop the EUR 0.3 billion undrawn lines being drawn? What legally can you do to stop that? And the EUR 0.4 billion of Russian customers, can you give us some color on those? Is that secured, unsecured? If it's secured, where is your security? Are these major corporates? Are they never heard of Russian companies, what can you tell us?

Thanks for those questions on Russia. I mean certainly, I mean for respect that I can't talk our names on Russian corporates naturally. So I would say with the book we have, name-wise, we feel quite comfortable. It's a mixture of being secured, not secured, certainly a pre-export finance transactions, right, which actually are secured, right? So it's a mixture of both. And what we are doing and the main thing we're doing in Russia is we are following our German clients, and this is very important. It's our main business that we do in the Moscow subsidiary. And this is why we certainly are in tense talks with our German clients, how we can support them. And certainly here, but we talk to German headquarters, the German head offices of clients and to basically support them through the crisis. But again, right, I mean, as you know, we have certainly contractual agreements and we're going to stick to those agreements. But wherever possible, we certainly are monitoring and also reducing our risk. Clearly, we do that.

Maybe a dumb question. But I mean if you invade the country and sanctions are invoked, I would have thought you could say that's, of course, the undrawn line can't be drawn, but maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm missing something?

No, we certainly look at the sanctions. We have same clauses in every loan agreement. So basically, here, we go through it name by name. And we certainly will evaluate every single situation. But also here in the close talks with our clients. But again, it's a clear yes that we have sanction for us included with our clients.

And now the next question via Teams comes again from Anke Reingen from Royal Bank of Canada.

I had a similar question. It's -- I guess it's not really business as usual at the moment. And I just wonder how do you operate? I mean, is that like a task force, how easy is it to like follow clients that are under sanctions. And you just mentioned the scale and risk in a number of areas. I mean what are the factors you are watching? Can you maybe just talk us through a bit from outside how in a situation like this, you manage the bank?

Yes, it's absolutely clear that we have a task force looking at this situation. So I mean, with our clients, I mean, the teams are in direct contacts, of course, we're looking at the risks stemming from this portfolio. And of course, it's absolutely clear that we follow the sanctions. I mean, there is no doubt about that. But it's clear that we, first of all, you need to have the sanctions in writing from the EU and then you can follow. So I mean, yes, we are in an everyday operational crisis modus, on the one hand to understand what that exactly means right now, what is under the sanctions and what is not. What kind of institutions are under the sanctions. And on the other hand, as Michael said, I mean we are here mostly for our German corporates and they have subsidiaries over there. They have factories over there, and we're working with our and to see what we can do with -- to be at our corporate. So Michael and the teams are talking with the CFOs, treasurers and the teams there. And that is basically a couple of times on a day-to-day basis.

Yes. We certainly directly executed our emergency action plans that we rightly have in place. So we directly executed those immediately. As Manfred said, we have a task force. This has been also immediately activated. And they manage all counterparties and individual transactions. They look at risk -- possible risk reductions and also at measures implemented on the sanctions side. And to give you a great example, this task force, and I'm part of it, and in this meeting are conferring up to 4 times a day. So -- and so as you can imagine, right, we were constantly on the phone on the weekend. And -- but again, we have emergency plans exactly for a situation like this, and those emergency plans were clearly activated as soon as the crisis really went off.

Now we have a question from the webcast again. It comes from [ Krishnan Ratubai ] from Barclays. And it reads, could you please confirm the equity exposure to Russian subsidiary is EUR 300 million. Russian banking business are generally high return on tangible equity businesses. What is the revenue and profit contribution from Russian exposure?

So let me confirm the equity exposure is a little bit more than EUR 300 million with this factor. I mean, the ROTE, it is indeed a decent business. It's not a large business there the way they contribute, but the P&L is rather limited. And with respect to revenue and profit contribution from Russian exposure, I hand over to Michael.

Well, basically -- thank you, Bettina. The -- our first priority now is to look at risk. And so not that potential impact on revenue. So this is what we focus and concentrate on, and this is, I think, first priority and first action to do. And then the rest we'll see, actually, we certainly will not give out numbers of concrete -- the revenues we have from the Russian business because part of the Russian business certainly is in Russia. The other one is basically -- it's been in Germany with companies basically that have business in Russia. So -- but again, the first priority and sorry is that we try to get a grip around the path going forward on risk reduction. And this is what we do currently. Thank you.

And the last question, ladies and gentlemen, comes via Teams, and it is from Johannes Thormann from HSBC.

One question regarding comdirect. If the company had previously very good transparency in terms of activity. Can you tell us how the business has developed after the integration to the business or into Commerzbank itself? Do you now have above 2 million customers and reach the EUR 50 million trading threshold in last year? And secondly, just on the fintech free fund you're talking about, is the funding only coming from Commerzbank or have you now invited partners to do so?

So I will take the first part of the question when it comes to comdirect. You're completely right, comdirect is doing very well. So we had a very, very good year in 2020. So also after the migration to Commerzbank, it was performing very well. Also named as the best online bank in Germany over the last 2 years. 2021, more or less in the same direction as long as the volatility is high. We see that we have very high trading volume. Nevertheless, we have to say that with the [indiscernible] also comdirect has to do some homeworks and then inform clients, as we are doing now. But from a trading point of view, very well on track. And we are offering additional services like, as I said, the robo-advisor and we will come up with social trading within the next days, and this will attract new clients, especially when it comes to younger clients.

So the third fund is designed in a way that it could be opened up for third-party investors. However, in the moment, we are the sole investor at Commerzbank.

Okay. Thank you all very much for your participation in our capital markets event and for the Q&A session this afternoon. Please do get in touch with our Investor Relations team, if you have any further questions or questions that couldn't be covered in today's session. We all very much look forward to future discussions, hopefully, in peace and person as soon as the situation allows. Thank you very much again, and have a good afternoon.