Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (DBK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. I'm Francine, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Deutsche Bank Q4 2022 Analyst Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] It's my pleasure, and I would now like to turn the conference over to Ioana Patriniche Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and full year 2022 preliminary results call. This quarter, we will start with our Chief Executive Officer, Christian Sewing; followed by our Chief Risk Officer, Olivier Vigneron and then our Chief Financial Officer, James von Moltke. The presentation, as always, is available to download in the Investor Relations section of our website, db.com. Before we get started, let me just remind you that the presentation contains forward-looking statements, which may not develop as we currently expect. We therefore ask you to take notice of the precautionary warning at the end of our materials. With that, let me hand over to Christian.

Thank you, Ioana, and welcome from me too. Today marks a very significant milestone for us. 3.5 years ago, in July 2019, we came together with you to discuss our plans for a fundamental transformation of Deutsche Bank, and we set ourselves some key financial goals for the end of 2022. Today, we would like to talk you through what we have achieved despite facing significant challenges from a pandemic and the war in Ukraine. We would also like to highlight how Deutsche Bank today is a fundamentally different bank positioning us for further sustainable growth. Let's start with the 5 decisive actions we took as we launched our transformation strategy in 2019 on Slide 1. Firstly, we created 4 client-centric divisions, which have delivered stable growth as promised. In 2022, these 4 businesses contributed to our best profits for 15 years. These divisions complement each other and provide well-diversified earnings stream. We are now a better balance bank. We are particularly pleased that the corporate and private banks together more than doubled their contribution since 2018. Contributing just over 70% of the group's pretax profit in 2022. Secondly, we exited businesses and activities, which were not core to our strategy. We exited equities trading, transferred our global prime finance business, refocused our rates business and downsized or disposed of other nonstrategic activities. Our capital release unit reduced leverage exposure from nonstrategic activities by 91% in risk-weighted assets by 83%, excluding RWAs from operational risk. This has enabled us to redeploy capital into our core businesses. Thirdly, we cut costs. Compared to the pre-transformation level of 2018, we reduced our cost income ratio by 18 percentage points. We achieved this while absorbing more than EUR 8 billion of transformation-related effects and facing an inflation rate we have not seen for decades. Firstly, we committed to and invested in controls and technology to support growth. We also signed state-of-the-art agreements with Google Cloud and other partners. Our focus on technology has allowed us to grow revenues through closer interface with clients, reduce cost by removing complexity in our technology and improve our control environment. Finally, we managed and freed up capital. As promised, we kept our CET1 ratio above our target minimum of 12.5% through all 14 quarters of transformation and finished the year at 13.4%. This was despite an impact of around 170 basis points from regulatory changes. 100 basis points from transformation-related impact and, of course, supporting the growth of our business. The capital relief unit plays an important role here to contributing around 45 basis points on a net basis to our CET1 ratio. All of this progress since 2018 has enabled us to start to return capital to our shareholders through both share repurchases and dividends. We plan to propose a dividend of EUR 0.30 per share in respect of 2022 and we reaffirm our commitments for 2025. Most importantly, pride return to the organization, which in turn supports our positive momentum. Commitment and enablement scores materially improved over the last 3 years. This positive atmosphere will, of course, help to further shape the future of our bank and even accelerate our momentum. Let me now turn to our performance in 2022 on Slide 2. These 5 decisive actions and the renewed belief and pride of our people has positioned us to build and maintain a trajectory of sustainable growth, and this is reflected in our 2022 results. Revenues are above EUR 27 billion well ahead of what we had planned in 2019 despite the business exits I mentioned. All 4 core businesses produced positive operating leverage compared to their pre-transformation levels. 2022, our reported return on tangible equity was above 9%, including a deferred tax asset valuation adjustment change will outline in more detail. In terms of profitability, we delivered our highest profit since 2007 at EUR 5.6 billion before tax. Our cost-to-income ratio is 75% and significantly below the pre-transformation level of 93 in 2018. Pre-provision profit for the group was nearly EUR 7 billion in 2022 and diluted earnings per share were EUR 2.37. Deutsche Bank has proved its resilience during the challenging environment over the past few years. We have maintained disciplined risk management and a strong balance sheet, as Olivier will discuss in a moment, and we maintained robust capital and leverage ratios. Germany's provision of support to households and industry during times of stress is another testament to the strength of operating in the German economy as our home market. Let's now discuss the key aspects of our transformation in more detail, starting with the revenues on Slide 3. In 2019, we refocused our business and look to grow our core bank and our efforts have clearly paid off. 2022 revenues were over EUR 27 billion, 7% higher than pre-transformation levels and well ahead of our original aspiration, thanks to growth across all our core businesses. This more than offset the foregone revenues from business exits as the core businesses outperformed their targets for revenue growth. So as a result, we are now not only operating a more focused bank but also a more productive one. Revenues per employee are now 16% higher than pre-transformation levels. Turning now to our cost on Slide 4. Our cost-to-income ratio in 2022 was 75%, an improvement of 18 percentage points compared to pre-transformation levels at the high end of our guidance. We significantly reduced costs and generated annual run rate savings of more than EUR 3 billion from our transformation. Our focused restructuring efforts more than offset investments in our franchise and investments in technology and controls, which I will discuss in a moment. As a result, profit growth has been driven by significant operating leverage. But we note, we also need to continue to focus on generating further operational efficiency. In addition to the EUR 2 billion of efficiency measures we announced in March 2022, which James will provide an update on later, we will focus our efforts on generating further incremental cost savings. These additional measures will relentlessly focus on a more efficient workforce structure, including, but not limited to, reviews of layers, cost per seat and location. We will also streamline our nonclient-facing divisional functions and infrastructure teams. And of course, this also means the continuation of a very disciplined and agile management of our total head count numbers. Furthermore, we will also take advantage of further automation opportunities for our front-to-back experience. Leveraging Technology to augment client service processes in the corporate and private banks. Over the last 3 years, we have successfully developed internal tools which, together with external benchmarking, give us the support and transparency to drive these incremental cost savings. We are pleased with the progress we have made to date with the drivers of the EUR 2 billion of efficiency measures, and hence, we are confident we can deliver these additional items. Let me now go through the diversification of our businesses on Slide 5. The core bank produced pre-provision profits of nearly EUR 8 billion in 2022. More than double pre-transformation levels and diversification has been a key contributor. The corporate and private banks together contributed about EUR 5 billion more than 60% of the core bank total. With 4 strong businesses, we have delivered resilient financial performance through a very unpredictable economic environment and volatile financial markets. This enabled the core bank to deliver a return on tangible equity of 11.3% in 2022. Let me now turn to the performance of this business in more detail on Slide 6. All 4 core businesses have significantly improved profitability through the transformation period on all key metrics: revenue growth, cost income ratio improvements and higher returns. The corporate bank delivered its best-ever profit before tax of over EUR 2 billion in 2022 with a cost-income ratio of 62% and a return on tangible equity of 12%. The business leveraged our global network and capabilities to build out its franchise. Deposits are up by nearly EUR 35 billion over pre-transformation levels, enabling us to take advantage of rising interest rates and loans are around EUR 8 billion higher than in 2018. The Investment Bank has tripled its return on tangible equity and improved its cost income ratio by more than 20 percentage points since 2018. The work undertaken within our FIC business since 2019 has led to significant revenue growth. While we appreciate this took place in supportive markets, importantly, we have also been able to materially grow market share, supported by improved external ratings allowing clients to come back to the platform. The investment into our diversified platform will enable us to consolidate our current market position, whilst continuing to identify target areas of further growth. In 2022, FIC revenues were nearly EUR 9 billion, the highest for a decade and up around 60% over 2018. We have further strengthened our European bond franchise in the investment bank. We were #1 by volume in European investment-grade bond issuance, and we saw our highest electronic market shares of ETBs for over 10 years, building on 2021, which was the previous side. Lower activity and volumes negatively impacted Origination & Advisory in 2022, but the business had areas of positive momentum, including regaining the #1 position in German M&A. Private Bank has significantly improved both cost-income ratio and return on tangible equity, outperforming their targets and resulting in profit before tax of EUR 2 billion its highest ever. The business has adapted to the changing needs of clients, automated processes, made progress on consolidating our IT platform in Germany and reduced branches by nearly 500 since 2018. Business volumes have grown by EUR 130 billion over pre-transformation levels with new client loans of around EUR 50 billion and assets under management up by about EUR 80 billion since 2018. Asset Management, has seen its return on tangible equity rise to 17% since 2018, while improving its cost income ratio by around 9 percentage points. The business has continued to invest in the future and demonstrated its resilience in tougher financial markets. Despite challenging markets in 2022, assets under management are now around EUR 160 billion higher than at the end of 2018. Simply put, all 4 businesses has demonstrated positive momentum on all 3 dimensions, and this positions us well for the future. Again, supported by our improved ratings with all 3 leading rating agencies, we continue to see clients coming back to the platform. Combined with the continued expected interest rate tailwinds and the strength of our underlying franchise, we are confident that our strong performance will continue. Let me now turn to another of our key decisions in 2019 and investing in technology and controls on Slide 7. We're committed to spending a cumulative EUR 15 billion on technology and an additional EUR 4 billion on our control environment as part of our transformation. The benefits of our delivery for clients, costs and controls have been substantial. Let me give you a few examples. We took advantage of cloud technology, both through strategic partnerships and our own efforts. We now have more than 200 apps in Google Cloud and have migrated over 1,000 databases to Oracle private cloud. We simplified our IT landscape by retiring apps which helped deliver a reduction in annual spend of around EUR 0.25 billion per year. We have built a closer interface with FIC clients by automating our flow trading capabilities. We made progress in migrating contracts of postbank clients and related business volumes onto the Deutsche Bank IT platform. This migration is expected to be completely halfway through the year with planned run rate savings of around EUR 300 million by 2025 in the private bank. We have reinforced our control functions, increasing the number of dedicated professionals by more than 1/4. We continue to focus investments on our cybersecurity capabilities and we have improved our processing capacity and improved quality assurance in KYC. Building a more sustainable Deutsche Bank was also part of our transformation agenda. We have made considerable progress, which we summarized on Slide 8. We have rolled out a comprehensive sustainability strategy and installed a clear governance structure, which establishes sustainability as a core part of the way we run Deutsche Bank. We set clear targets for business volumes in ESG financing and investment and made each business accountable for delivering on these targets. We have strengthened our controls further and have embedded sustainability criteria into senior executive compensation. Our businesses have outperformed against our original targets and this enabled us to accelerate the time frame for delivery twice. From 2020 to 2022, we outperformed our target of EUR 200 billion Cumulative ESG financing and investment volumes with a total of EUR 215 billion in our core businesses, excluding DWS. In last year's difficult market environment, we increased volumes by EUR 58 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2022, we published pathways to net 0 for the most carbon-intensive sectors in our loan book, and we have created a net 0 alignment forum in which business risk and the sustainability office manage our footprint accordingly. We look forward to providing you with an update and details of our future plans at our second sustainability deep dive on March 2 this year. Before I hand over to Olivier, let me say a few words on the next phase of our strategy through to 2025 on Slide 9. The progress we have made in transforming Deutsche Bank leaves us well positioned to deliver sustainable growth through 2025. When we set out our strategy in March last year, we outlined the key themes which underpin these goals and ambitions. And these themes have become even more important in the light of the geopolitical and macroeconomic upheavals of 2022. In an environment of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, we will leverage the more favorable interest rate environment, deploy our risk management expertise to support clients and allocate capital to high-return growth opportunities. With sustainability being so important, we will deepen our dialogue with and support for clients, expand our product range and broaden our agenda for our own operations. And as technology continues to evolve, we will reap further cost savings, accelerate our transition to a digital bank and expand on our strategic partnerships, which are already creating significant value. Our platform is positioned to deliver sustainable growth and seize the opportunities of the evolving environment. Finally, a word on our 2025 targets on Slide 10. We are confident we can build on the momentum we have generated in all our core businesses on all dimensions as we continue to transform the bank. And we reaffirm the financial goals we set out last March. Our target is the return on tangible equity of about 10% in 2025. The performance of our core bank in 2022 gives us confidence that this goal is very achievable. We reaffirm our target for compound annual revenue growth of between 3.5% and 4.5%, supported by the momentum we already have in our core businesses from a dynamic interest rate environment and the performance we have delivered in the divisions to date. With this revenue growth and the additional efficiency drivers I outlined, we also reaffirm our goal for a cost/income ratio of below 62.5% in 2025. For 2023, we remain focused on continuing to deliver positive operating leverage and our strong performance in January supports this. We also confirm our capital objectives. We will build capital to support profitable growth and absorb future regulatory changes, and we continue to aim for a CET1 capital ratio of around 13%. We aim to achieve our capital distribution objectives through a combination of dividends and share repurchase in line with our previous guidance aiming for a payout ratio of 50% from 2025 onwards. We outlined a clear dividend path, which we reaffirm today. We proposed a dividend of EUR 0.30 for the financial year 2022 but given the remaining uncertainties in the market environment, it is too early to comment on the exact amount and timing of share repurchase in this year. With that, let me hand over to Olivier.

Thank you, Christian. I am Olivier Vigneron as you know, I became Chief Risk Officer in May. I'm proud to say that I rejoined the bank with a strong and stable balance sheet, but more importantly, a bank that is renowned for its disciplined risk management. This has enabled Deutsche Bank to withstand many challenging and uncertain environments in recent years and to demonstrate its resilience during times of stress. In my first month as CRO, I've been particularly pleased to experience a strong risk culture, supported by a well-established risk appetite framework. In order to maintain this discipline going forward, we continue to invest in our people and risk management capabilities as well as controls and technology, which support timely and proactive risk management. This enables us to manage risk dynamically within our framework and most importantly, within our risk appetite. We continuously monitor emerging risks, run downside analysis and stress tests and operate a comprehensive limit framework across all risk types. In this way, we can respond proactively to changes in our operating environment as you have seen us do in 2022 during the ecalating war in Ukraine and the stress on European energy supplies. Despite challenges throughout the year, our risk management approach helped us maintain strong risk and balance sheet metrics. Our CET1 ratio was 30.4%, and our provision for credit losses was 25 basis points of average loans for 2022, in line with our guidance provided back in March. Our liquidity metrics have remained sound, and we managed to keep operational risk losses stable over the course of our transformation. Entering 2023 on this strong foundation positions us well to continue navigating through an evolving and uncertain risk environment. We relentlessly scanned the operating landscape to identify and monitor risks that impact us and the wider banking sector, making sure we are proactive in our positioning for any emerging risks. On Slide 13, you can see which themes we believe may influence the banking sector in 2023 and beyond. This range from geopolitical developments, volatility in financial markets, and a potentially deteriorating credit outlook to various other risks. We are able to manage these challenges because Auris framework provides us with multiple laser protection, which we apply on Slide 14. Our risk appetite is calibrated to capital adequacy and earnings stability with the key metrics of the bank cascaded down to individual businesses. We employ thousands of risk limits across country, industry, asset class and individual clients and across a variety of risk factors and markets. In addition, we manage credit and market risk limits dynamically and monitor liquidity daily on multiple dimensions. We also strictly control appetite for nonfinancial risks. Our nonfinancial risk monitoring has more than 1,200 controls that are mapped to different risk types and regularly assessed for their effectiveness. In October 2022, we introduced sector-specific targets to reduce the carbon intensity of our loan book. We mitigate risk through extensive use of credit enhancement via external hedging in addition to high-quality collateral and structural protection such as selecting first lien positions. Our loan portfolio does benefit from EUR 39 billion in collateralized loan obligation and credit default swap hedges as well as or the risk mitigation through private risk insurance on certain portfolios. Our dynamic market risk hedging strategy has again proven highly effective in the volatile environment of 2022. Our rigorous stress testing approach takes into account a range of severities and is built around a number of historical and hypothetical scenarios. This enables us to identify and address potential vulnerabilities in our portfolios including emerging risks and supports assessment of nonfinancial risks. We benefit from white established crisis management procedures, robust nonfinancial risk management frameworks and clear governance around our risk culture and conduct. We have established our internal framework for net 0 targets, and we will continue to extend the scope of these in 2023. We continue to review the maturity of the bank's security framework and deploy a state-driven approach to direct and adjust our investments in information security. Finally, our people are the critical success factor, embedding our strong risk culture throughout the organization. Let me now turn to our loan book on Slide 15. Almost half of our EUR 489 billion loan book is in Germany. We see this as an advantage as Germany is well positioned to withstand times of stress and volatility. It is Europe's most stable economy and as many multinational companies, which have displayed great resilience in times of uncertainties in the past. And according to the most recent concensus, Germany is not expected to see an energy supply squeeze in the remainder of this winter. Outside Germany, around 40% of the loan book is equally distributed across EMEA and North America. -- with the remainder largely in the APAC region. Looking at our business mix, almost 80% of our portfolio is in stable and mostly lower-risk businesses in our Private Bank and Corporate Bank. The investment bank accounts for 21% of the book distributed across a variety of products and regional portfolios. Lastly, you can see how well diversified our loan book is. household whole loans, which are mainly low-risk mortgages and to a small extent, consumer finance account for 44% of the portfolio. 24% of the loan book relates to financial and insurance activities, which by a variety of client segments from exposures with top-tier banks to collateralize activities with funds. The remaining EUR 158 billion or 32% of the loan book, is split across multiple sectors and remains well diversified. All exposures are partly managed based on our conservative underwriting standards. In the next slides, I will provide more detail on our confidence in the credit quality and resilience of selected key portfolios. Let me start with some additional detail on our German loan book of EUR 235 billion on Slide 16. Around 3/4 of this book is within the private bank and nearly 90% thereof are low-risk German retail mortgages. In the German mortgage market, clients typically lock in fixed rates for 10 or more years. So our portfolio comprises long-term fixed rate loans with a loan-to-value of 66% based on current market values. As a consequence, this portfolio is generally not at risk of being impacted by the rising rate environment and demonstrates good repayment discipline. We view German mortgages as low risk supported by higher employment levels and low household indebtedness. However, in light of the current environment, we have adjusted input criteria for our decision engine to account for price levels of goods, energy and interest rates. We have seen stable default and recovery rates since 2019. Only EUR 16 million of the private bank German exposure relates to consumer finance, mainly personal loans, and we continue to see good repayment discipline despite the more challenging environment. We do not operate a significant credit card financing business. Our corporate loan book of EUR 63 billion in Germany consists mainly of trade finance and commercial lending. This exposure is also well diversified across a large number of clients, and the average exposure per client is around EUR 260,000. In line with our frameworks, we have limited concentration risk on the top 15 names account for only 6% of this portfolio. Credit quality is high with 71% of loans rated investment grade, and the exposure is predominantly to multinational corporates. The portfolio is closely monitored and actively managed with threshold-based hedging and the use of collateral and guarantees for risk mitigation purposes. We have intensified the dialogue with clients in order to identify pockets of risk early, and we continue to support clients with their needs. All in all, our strong and high-quality portfolio gives us comfort around our German exposures, supported by a resilient corporate backdrop and ongoing government actions. Despite the relatively low share of our loan book, our commercial real estate focused portfolio and leverage lending exposures remaining focused due to their vulnerability to rising interest rates and market volatility as well as the ongoing impact of postpandemic trends on selected CRs of portfolios. So let me give you some additional color on these categories on Slide 17. The CRE focused portfolio of EUR 33 billion or 7% of our loan book, consists of nonrecourse lending within the core CRE business units in the Investment Bank and the Corporate Bank. Our CRE lending activities are mainly first lien mortgage secured and structured with moderate loan to values. The portfolio is well diversified across regions, with 51% in the U.S., 36% in Europe and 13% in Asia. Loan originations are primarily focused on assets in liquid regional markets such as top-tier gateway cities and with high-quality institutional sponsors. The portfolio is well diversified by property type also with the largest concentration in office at 34% while hospitality and retail account for only 12% and 10%, respectively. While office is facing headwinds and uncertainty from the adoption of hybrid working models, we benefit from good quality assets in primary markets moderate LTVs and again strong sponsors. Weighted average LTV is around 61% in the Investment Bank, CRE portfolio and 53% in the corporate bank. The latter portfolio has shown strong resilience with no credit losses through recent volatility, including the pandemic. Other real estate exposures such as our recourse lending are the high quality and have seen low losses in the past. The provision in Investment Bank CRE portfolio increased in 2022 as market conditions deteriorated in the second half of the year. However, the increase in provisions was well within the business' earnings capacity. We expect the challenging market conditions to continue into 2023, and we continue to closely monitor loan performance with a focus on interim maturities. We are proactively working with our clients to find optimized refinancing solutions in order to reduce leverage in specific transactions. And we are also tightly managing our CRE underwriting pipeline and reduced our market risk limits in 2022. Our leverage lending portfolio of EUR 4 billion represents just 1% of our total loan book. The portfolio is well diversified across industry sectors without any undue concentration risks. And the top 10 names account for only 11% of the portfolio on a gross notional basis. Around 75% of the exposure is in the form of first lien secured credit facilities, mostly of revolving nature. The remaining 21% is asset-based lending, which is almost entirely U.S.-based and at a negligible loss history. In a more uncertain market environment in 2022, we actively curtailed our underwriting risk appetite and derisked our underwriting pipeline. Overall, leverage lending remains core to our franchise. We are entering 2023 well positioned and with a significantly derisked underwriting pipeline. While the macro outlook will weigh on the portfolio, we see limited refinancing pressure due to an overall low maturity profile in 2023. Now moving to Slide 18. I will take you through our management of market risk and nonfinancial risks. Market risk has been another focus area over a period of increased volatility throughout last year and this is expected to persist in 2023. We have supported our clients in navigating through this volatile environment and will continue to do so. At the same time, we continue to manage exposures tightly and ensure we stay within our risk appetite. Risk-weighted asset associated with market risk have been at elevated levels throughout 2022, driven by an increase in market volatility that translated into higher value at risk, which for the fourth quarter rose to EUR 47 million compared to EUR 34 million in the prior year quarter. To manage elevated volatility throughout the year, we have been proactive in containing and mitigating exposure in peers of stress. We did so during the first half of the year during the volatility caused by the win Ukraine and continue to support issuers and clients throughout the gilt market volatility in the third quarter. We actively manage balance sheet interest rate risk over this period of unprecedented rate rises in order to protect capital as well as managing the risks around our net interest income. Moving to nonfactor risk exposure. We are satisfied with the progress we have made on risk remediation and have reduced the highest category risk by 47% since January 2021. In addition, we have made good progress in increasing number of key controls assessed through our quality assurance process. This improves robustness and transparency of our risk and control assessment, which is a cornerstone of our nonfinancial risk management framework. At the same time, we remain proactive in the identification and mitigation of potential threats and control vulnerabilities. We regularly conduct scenario analysis and deep dive that help us understand potential risk exposures. We continue to review the maturity of the bank security framework and deploy a threat-driven approach to direct and adjust our investments in information security. Finally, let me turn to provision for credit losses on Slide 19. We have a very good track record when it comes to our guidance for provisions for credit losses. Even through volatile and unpredictable environment. This is due to our robust lending and underwriting, our active portfolio monitoring and provisioning process, reflecting the true risk we anticipate. We have outperformed our peers over a 5-year average period, which reflects our asset quality, but also risk management that keeps our risk profile less procyclical and more stable. And even though 2022 was characterized by a high level of uncertainty, we again delivered provision for credit losses in line with our guidance without any reliance on excessive overlays. In June, we introduced a downside scenario, which implies an additional 20 basis points over an 18-month period in case of ever gas supply disruption in Europe. This scenario did not materialize. Gas supply remained stable and storage levels high as gas from Russia was substituted through other sources and the winter was milder than expected. For 2023, we initially expected provision for credit losses to be in the range of 25 to 30 basis points of average loans, reflecting persistent macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties. Unlike 2022, we expect provision for this year to be driven by single M losses rather than deterioration of macroeconomic forward-looking indicators. As such, and given the recent improvement in the global macroeconomic outlook, we now foresee provision at the low end of this range. With that, let me make a few closing remarks on Slide 20. We have again navigated well through another year of significant market volatility. Our disciplined risk management provided a strong foundation, which allowed us to be proactive in identifying monitoring and managing risks. We have a conservative risk profile and a well-diversified loan book across clients, regions products and businesses. Our strategic positioning benefits us with a low risk and high-quality German portfolio. As a result, provisions could remain contained closer to 25 basis points of average loans for 2023 or essentially flat to 2022. Let me now hand over to James, who will take you through our financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Olivier. Let me now cover the impact, delivering the transformation plan has had on our profitability and financial stability. We are pleased that all divisions delivered significant positive operating leverage on an annual basis since 2018. We intended to continue to deliver operating leverage for the group on an annual basis going forward. Our returns have improved every year since 2019. We've reduced noninterest expenses over the period. We will continue to be disciplined on costs, including working on additional measures to offset cost pressures in line with our 2025 target of a cost income ratio below 62.5%. Finally, our capital remains resilient. Since 2018, we absorbed around 270 basis points of capital headwinds from regulatory impacts and our transformation plan and ended the year at 13.4% and around 300 basis points above our regulatory requirements. Let's now turn to the fourth quarter and full year 2022 performance on Slide 23. Starting with the fourth quarter. Total revenues for the group were EUR 6.3 billion, up 7% on the fourth quarter of 2021. Noninterest expenses of EUR 5.2 billion reduced by 7% year-on-year with all cost categories flat or down, which I will detail later. Our provision for credit losses was EUR 351 million or 28 basis points of average loans. We generated a profit before tax of EUR 775 million, up from EUR 82 million in the fourth quarter of 2021. Our net profit of nearly EUR 2 billion reflects a positive year-end deferred tax asset valuation adjustment of EUR 1.4 billion. This deferred tax benefit reflects a recovery in the accounting value of our tax loss carryforwards in the U.S. as profitability has significantly improved since 2019 due to the successful transformation of our U.S. business. The return on tangible equity for the group for the quarter was 13.1%. Our cost-income ratio came in at 82%, down 12 percentage points compared to the prior year period. Tangible book value per share was EUR 26.7 and up EUR 0.23 on the quarter and 8% year-on-year. We reported diluted earnings per share of EUR 0.92 for the quarter, which brings the full year total to EUR 2.37. For the full year 2022, we generated a pretax profit of EUR 5.6 billion, up 65% over 2021. Return on tangible equity for the group was 9.4% for the full year compared to 3.8% for 2021. Excluding the benefit of the deferred tax asset valuation adjustment, our return on tangible equity would have been 6.7% for the year, and our full year tax rate would have been 24%, in line with our previous guidance. For 2023, we expect an effective tax rate of 29%. Let's now turn to the core bank's performance on Slide 24. Starting again with the fourth quarter. Core Bank revenues were EUR 6.3 billion, up 7% on the prior year quarter. Noninterest expenses declined 4% year-on-year, with adjusted costs also down 4% for the same period. We reported a profit before tax of EUR 1 billion, more than double the prior year quarter. Our core bank return on tangible equity for the quarter was 14.9%. Our cost-income ratio came in at 79%, down from 88% in the prior year period. On a full year basis, revenues in the core bank were EUR 27.2 billion, up 7% compared to 2021, while noninterest expenses of EUR 19.5 billion were down 3%. Cost income ratio improved to 71% from 79% in 2021. In 2022, we generated a pretax profit of EUR 6.5 billion, up 37% year-on-year and the highest since we began our transformation in 2019. We reported a return on tangible equity of 11.3% or 8.5%, excluding the deferred tax asset valuation adjustment, slightly below our target of above 9%. Turning to net interest margin on Slide 25. And we can see the continued favorable impact of the interest rate environment with NIM at slightly above 1.5% in the fourth quarter. This increase has been achieved despite the nonrecurrence of the third quarter buyback gains. Net interest earning assets are slightly down due to the impact of the weaker U.S. dollar and the partial prepayment of TLTRO 3. We expect NIM to remain strong given the ongoing rate rises, and we expect to see a material year-on-year NII tailwind in 2023, which I will detail on Slide 26. Let me now provide an update on the interest rate tailwind we expect to see going forward. In March 2022, we guided that interest rate tailwinds net of funding cost offsets would add approximately 1 percentage point to the revenue compound annual growth rate from 2021 to 2025. This figure has risen to approximately 1.5 percentage points from our 2022 landing point based on rates and funding spreads as of January 20. As you can see, the divisional CAGRs net of funding impacts on the right side of the slide. As we want to give you a consistent view across rate and funding cost impacts, these figures are based on the evolution of our planned liability stack rather than a purely static balance sheet, but do not include the impacts of planned lending growth. In 2023, we expect to see strong interest rate impacts due to the timing effects from the rapid pace of interest rate rises. By 2025, the rollover of our hedge portfolios will have offset the reduction in this timing effect, resulting in the NII benefit being maintained. As I noted at our third quarter analyst call, the sequential tailwind from '22 to '23 in is expected to be approximately EUR 1 billion for the full year. Moving to costs on Slide 27. We reduced adjusted costs, excluding transformation charges and bank levies by EUR 3.1 billion or 14% since 2018. Excluding FX movements, costs were down 16% during this period. Compensation and benefits costs decreased by EUR 1 billion, driven by changes in workforce size and composition. Non compensation costs were lower across all categories. Both professional services and IT spend were down by nearly EUR 0.5 billion. The IT spend reduction was in line with the overall cost reduction. As Christian indicated, our cumulative IT spend was EUR 15 billion over the past 4 years. Within this spend, we saw reductions in our running IT operating expenses as the benefits from simplified architecture came through. At the same time, we continue to invest into our technology and people to future-proof the bank. The $1.1 billion lower costs in the other category reflects reductions across a number of line items with major contributions from building costs, regulatory fees, operational taxes and insurance expenses. We look at the 12-month comparison for 2022 on Slide 28. Adjusted costs, excluding transformation charges and bank levies stayed flat at around EUR 19 billion or down 3% excluding FX. Increases in compensation and benefits of EUR 399 million were mostly offset by reductions in noncompensation costs. Reductions in noncompensation expenses reflect our continued cost management efforts specifically from reduced costs for outsourced operations and lower occupancy-related spend. You can also see that fourth quarter adjusted costs, excluding transformation charges and bank levies were down by 2% year-on-year or 4% excluding FX. Let me now give you an update on the key pillars of the efficiency measures for the group we outlined in March at our Investor Day, which will contribute to our 2025 targets on Slide 29. These initiatives are expected to deliver structural cost savings of more than EUR 2 billion between 2022 and 2025. Let me give you some examples. The Germany platform optimization, entailing branch reductions and the technology integration of the IT platform shows how we were creating efficiencies by simplifying our overall architecture. We recently completed the second migration wave, which converted around 4 million additional Postbank contracts to the Deutsche Bank IT platform. One of our key priorities for 2023 is to complete the IT migration and start decommissioning the legacy IT Postbank system. We expect these actions to generate around EUR 600 million of savings by the end of 2025. Another part of our technology upgrade is the rearchitecture and simplification of our application landscape. In 2022, we decommissioned 9% of our total application stack and plan to decommission a further 500 applications by 2025. Supported by our cloud-based infrastructure, we've also migrated key applications to the cloud, and we'll continue to build on this progress. While we expect these savings to come through closer to 2025, we expect to deliver around EUR 600 million of savings overall. Our front-to-back process redesign has also delivered tangible results with more automated processes supported by improved controls and we will specifically continue to focus these improvements on loan processing, risk management and reporting activities. For example, we have designed a more efficient KYC process that will eliminate unnecessary client KYC questions by 40%, while enhancing control effectiveness via smart forms and workflows, determined by client-specific characteristics. Overall, we expect these actions to deliver around EUR 500 million of savings by 2025. In addition, we have also identified around EUR 500 million of cost savings primarily in infrastructure efficiencies. In line with the plans we outlined in March 2022, we've optimized office space resulting in a significant reduction of 170,000 square meters in 2022 and representing around 6% of our total global footprint. Going forward, we will continue to focus on optimizing our workforce management, including a more streamlined corporate title distribution. Turning to provisions for credit losses on Slide 30. Provision for credit losses for the full year 2022 was 25 basis points of average loans or EUR 1.2 billion, in line with previous guidance and confirming the resilience of our loan book. The year-on-year development reflected the impact of the war in the Ukraine and weaker macroeconomic conditions, while 2021 benefited from economic recovery post the easing of COVID restrictions. Provision for credit losses for the fourth quarter was 28 basis points of average loans on an annualized basis, or EUR 351 million, very much in line with the previous quarter. Stage 1 and 2 provision release of EUR 39 million compared to a net release of EUR 5 million in the prior year quarter, benefited from a stabilization of the macroeconomic forecast towards the end of the year, the release of an overlay from previous periods and improved portfolio parameters. Phase III provision increased to EUR 390 million compared to EUR 259 million in the prior year quarter. As with the previous quarter, the increase reflects an overall higher number of impairment events but we have not observed specific trends emerging and in particular, did not observe a material impact of higher energy prices on provisions. Moving to capital on Slide 31. Our common equity Tier 1 capital ratio came in at 13.4%, a 3 basis point increase compared to the previous quarter. FX translation effects contributed 2 basis points. 3 basis points of the increase came from capital supply changes, reflecting our strong organic capital generation from net income, largely offset by higher regulatory deductions for deferred tax assets, shareholder dividends and additional Tier 1 coupons. Risk-weighted asset changes drove a 2 basis point reduction in our CET1 ratio, principally due to higher market risk RWA, partially offset by net reductions in credit risk RWA and operational risk RWA remained broadly unchanged quarter-on-quarter. The higher market risk RWA resulted from higher SAR levels, mainly driven by a change in the applicable stress window versus the previous quarter. Credit risk RWA reduced during the quarter as the impact of regulatory model changes was more than offset by tight risk management in our core bank. Looking ahead, we expect our CET1 ratio to remain subject to volatility, principally due to regulatory model reviews and ECB audits. In 2022, amendments were made in particular to models for our mid-cap portfolio and our German retail portfolio. Now we expect model changes for the wholesale portfolio to follow in phases. A first set was implemented in the fourth quarter of last year with an RWA impact of around EUR 2.5 billion. The models for the larger portfolio of financial institutions and large corporates are expected to follow over the course of this year. We expect to be able to absorb model-related impacts via continued retention of earnings but the timing of regulatory model decisions is likely to create our CET1 ratio volatility. That said, we aim to end 2023 with a CET1 ratio of 200 basis points above our maximum distributable amount threshold expected to be 11.2%. We ended the year with a leverage ratio of 4.6%, in line with our 2022 target of around 4.5% and an increase of 25 basis points versus the previous quarter. FX translation effects resulted in a 5 basis point leverage ratio increase. 11 basis points came from higher Tier 1 capital reflecting a higher CET1 capital and our AT1 issuance in November 2022. Finally, 9 basis points increase came from a seasonal reduction in trading activities at year-end. With that, let's now turn to performance in our businesses, starting with the Corporate Bank on Slide 33. Full year revenues for the corporate bank were EUR 6.3 billion, 23% higher year-on-year. Strong revenue growth was driven by increased interest rates and continued pricing discipline higher commission and fee income as well as deposit growth and favorable FX movements. Momentum was strong in the fourth quarter with revenues increasing by 30% year-on-year mainly driven by the improved interest rate environment and solid underlying business performance supported by higher client deposits. Noninterest expenses of EUR 3.9 billion decreased by 5% year-on-year as positive contributions from non-compensation initiatives and lower nonoperating costs were partly offset by FX movements. Loan volume in the corporate bank was EUR 122 billion down by EUR 1 billion compared to the prior year quarter and down by EUR 7 billion compared to the previous quarter, driven by FX movements and increasing selectiveness of balance sheet deployment towards year-end 2022. Provision for credit losses increased from essentially 0 in the prior year to 27 basis points for the full year, reflecting the more challenging macroeconomic environment. Profit before tax was EUR 2.1 billion for the year, up by 103% year-on-year. The cost/income ratio came in at 62% and return on tangible equity was 12.5% and in line with our commitment for 2022. I will now turn to revenues by business segments in the fourth quarter on Slide 34. Corporate Treasury services revenues of more than EUR 1 billion increased by 26% year-on-year, driven by increased interest rates across all markets and higher deposits. Institutional Client Services revenues of EUR 442 million rose by 28%, benefiting from higher interest rates and deposit growth. Business banking revenues of EUR 273 million grew by 51% year-on-year, reflecting the transition to a positive interest rate environment in Germany. I'll now turn to the Investment Bank on Slide 35. For the full year, revenues ex specific items were 3% higher compared to what was a very strong 2021. Revenues in FIC were significantly higher, with strong year-on-year growth across the majority of the franchise. This was partially offset by significantly lower revenues in Origination & Advisory in an industry fee pool down 36% versus the prior year. Noninterest expenses were slightly higher versus the prior year, but essentially flat once adjusted for the impact of FX translation and increased bank levies. Our loan balances increased year-on-year driven by higher originations primarily in financing, combined with the impact of U.S. dollar appreciation versus the euro. Leverage exposure and RWAs were essentially flat year-on-year as underlying business reductions were offset by the impact of FX movements. Provision for credit losses was EUR 319 million or 32 basis points of average loans. The year-on-year increase was driven by a weakening macroeconomic environment, whilst the prior year benefited from a post-COVID recovery and lower levels of impairments. Turning to revenues by segment on Slide 36. Revenues in Fixed Sales & Trading increased by 27% in the fourth quarter when compared to the prior year, the highest fourth quarter revenues in over a decade. Adjusting for the impact of a concentrated distressed credit position in the prior year quarter, the year-on-year performance was approximately 70% higher. Very strong performance across the majority of the franchise was partially offset by significantly lower revenues in credit trading. Rates revenues were up over 400% with emerging markets and FX revenues significantly higher. The strong performance was driven by the ongoing heightened market activity and strong client flows. Financing revenues were slightly lower year-on-year as increased net interest margin was offset by reduced activity in commercial real estate and the APAC business more broadly. Credit trading revenues were significantly lower due to the nonrecurrence of the aforementioned concentrated distressed credit position in the prior year quarter and a market environment that continues to be challenging. In Origination & Advisory, revenues were down 71% against what was a record fourth quarter fee cool in the prior year and reflecting the underlying product mix of our businesses. Debt Origination revenues were significantly lower due to materially reduced leverage debt capital markets revenues. The leveraged loan market continued to be largely inactive, and we remain selective in our new business dealings with a focus on reducing our existing commitment pipeline. Loan markdowns during the quarter were minimal. Investment-grade debt revenues for the quarter were also significantly lower as was the industry fee pool. From a full year perspective, our revenue decline was less than the for industry average. Equity Origination revenues were significantly lower, reflecting an industry fee reduction of over 60% with the IPO market down over 80%. Revenues in advisory were significantly lower as the industry fee pool declined materially against a record prior year quarter. Turning to the Private Bank on Slide 37. Private Bank revenues were EUR 9.2 billion for the full year up 11% year-on-year or 6% if adjusted for the impact of the BGH ruling in 2021 and specific items. Those items include the previously disclosed gain on sale of around EUR 310 million related to the financial advisers business in Italy. From an operating perspective, revenues increased driven by higher net interest income and continued business growth. This more than compensated lower fee income, mainly reflecting the current macroeconomic uncertainties. Noninterest expenses declined by 11% supported by net releases of litigation provisions and lower restructuring expenses. Adjusted costs declined 5% year-on-year, driven by savings from transformation initiatives including workforce reductions and branch closures as well as lower internal service cost allocations. The Private Bank attracted net new business volumes of EUR 41 billion in the year with EUR 30 billion of inflows in assets under management and EUR 11 billion of net new client loans. Provision for credit losses reflects a high-quality loan portfolio especially in the retail businesses as well as tight risk discipline. The International Private Bank was impacted by single exposures, mainly in margin lending. Profit before tax rose to EUR 2 billion for the full year and more than doubled to EUR 1.6 billion, excluding specific revenue items, transformation costs and restructuring charges. Turning now to revenues by segment on Slide 38. Fourth quarter revenues in the Private Bank Germany were up 7% or 10% if adjusted for the net impact of the BGH brewing since the fourth quarter in 2021 included a positive true-up associated with estimated revenue losses. Higher net interest income more than compensated for lower fee income, which was impacted by lower client activity and more challenging markets as well as reduced fees from insurance products, reflecting long-term contractual changes. The business attracted net inflows into investment products of EUR 2 billion in the quarter. In the International Private Bank, revenues were up 49% or 10% adjusted for the gain on sale and specific revenue items from the Sal Oppenheim workout activities. We do not expect material contributions from this portfolio going forward. Revenues, excluding specific items, increased by 11% in Wealth Management and bank for entrepreneurs driven by higher deposit revenues mainly in Germany and EMEA as well as the positive impact of FX movements during the year. Premium banking revenues increased by 6%, reflecting higher deposit revenues which more than compensated lower loan and investment product revenues. Business growth continued with net inflows in assets under management of EUR 4 billion in the quarter, of which EUR 3 billion in investment products mostly initially and EMEA. Business volume growth of EUR 29 billion in the full year marked the highest increase since the formation of the International Private Bank. Let me continue with Asset Management on Slide 39. As you will have seen in their report, DWS reported a modest decline in performance compared to the prior year despite the market turbulence we saw in 2022. My usual reminder, the Asset Management segment includes certain items that are not part of the DWS stand-alone financials. Reported revenues declined by 4% versus the prior year, in part supported by FX movements. Management fees grew by 4%, reflecting higher fees from alternatives, partly offset by negative market impact in active and passive. Performance fees were significantly lower due than the prior year, primarily due to a large multi-asset performance fee reported in the fourth quarter of 2021. Other revenues declined on lower gains from co-investments, higher treasury funding costs, less favorable fair value of guarantees and a lower contribution from the investment in harvest. Noninterest expenses and adjusted costs increased by 10% and 4%, respectively, including FX movements. The increase in compensation cost was mainly attributable to strategic hires to support our transformation and business growth. The increase in noncompensation costs reflects higher professional service fees and IT costs from further investments into platform transformation and the normalization of other costs such as travel and entertainment and marketing and events. Nonoperating costs include a EUR 68 million impairment of an unamortized intangible asset related to a U.S. mutual fund contract as well as higher severance and litigation costs. Profit before tax of EUR 598 million in the year declined by 27% compared to the prior year. The cost-to-income ratio for the full year was 70% and return on tangible equity was 17%. Assets under management declined to EUR 821 billion, reflecting EUR 108 billion of market depreciation. Net outflows were more than offset by the beneficial impact of FX movements. Full year net outflows were EUR 20 billion, primarily in fixed income, passive and cash products, partly offset by net inflows in multi-asset and alternatives. Moving to Corporate and Other on Slide 40. For the full year 2022, Corporate & Other reported a pretax loss of EUR 1.6 billion compared to a pretax loss of EUR 1.1 billion for 2021. The higher loss in 2022 was primarily driven by impacts from valuation and timing differences, which resulted in a loss of EUR 122 million against the benefit of EUR 158 million in the prior year. Valuation and timing differences arise on derivatives used to hedge the group's balance sheet. These are accounting impacts and the valuation losses are expected to be recovered over time as the underlying instruments approach maturity. Funding and liquidity impacts were negative EUR 334 million for the full year 2022, in line with our prior guidance. Expenses associated with shareholder activities not allocated to the business divisions as defined in the OEC transfer pricing guidelines were EUR 506 million, a small increase to the prior year. Other impacts in Corporate and Other were negative EUR 817 million, primarily from certain infrastructure expenses retained in 2022. For 2023, we expect the pretax loss in T&O to be around EUR 1.2 billion, driven by shareholder expenses and funding and liquidity. In addition, CNO will report the results of the Capital Release Unit, which I will detail shortly and which is expected to generate a pretax loss, however, significantly lower than in 2022. We can now turn to the Capital Release Unit on Slide 41. For the full year 2022, the Capital Release Unit recorded a loss before tax of EUR 932 million, an improvement of EUR 431 million from the prior year. Revenues for the year were negative EUR 28 million compared to positive EUR 26 million in the prior year due to the nonrecurrence of the Prime Finance cost recovery more than offsetting lower derisking and funding impacts. Noninterest expenses declined by 36%, primarily driven by a 35% reduction in adjusted costs reflecting lower internal service charges and direct compensation and noncompensation costs. Leverage exposure declined by EUR 17 billion driven by derisking market impacts and natural roll-off of the portfolio. Risk-weighted assets declined by EUR 4 billion, driven by lower operational risk RWA and derisking. Since inception in the second quarter of 2019, the Capital Release Unit has reduced risk-weighted assets by 63% or 83%, excluding operational risk RWA and has reduced leverage exposure by 91%. In 2021, having outperformed against its targets, I'm sorry, in 2022, having outperformed against its targets for leverage exposure and RWAs. The Capital Release Unit also successfully met its target of less than EUR 800 million for adjusted costs, excluding transformation charges. Overall, we've been extremely pleased with the CRU team's execution against the mandate of the division and their critical contribution to the transformation of Deutsche Bank. Before I turn to the outlook, let me comment on the 2 changes that will impact our reporting in 2023 and beyond on Slides 42 and 43. Having fulfilled its mandate by the end of 2022, we will discontinue reporting the Capital Release Unit as a separate division. Since its inception in 2019, the Capital Release Unit has contributed substantially to the success of Deutsche Bank's transformation and its target achievement. As I mentioned before, between the second quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2022, the division was able to reduce leverage exposure by EUR 227 billion to EUR 22 billion at the end of 2022, outperforming its 2020 target by EUR 29 billion. At the same time, the capital release unit reduced its risk-weighted assets by EUR 40 billion to EUR 24 billion at the end of 2022, outperforming against its 2020 investor deep dive target by EUR 8 billion. This reduction in RWA represented a critical contribution to the achievement of our capital objectives while supporting the reallocation of capital to the core bank. Across 2019 to 2022, and the RWA reduction in the CRU led to an improvement in the group's CET1 ratio by around 45 basis points even after subtracting operating losses. The CRU also contributed to improving the group's leverage ratio by around 55 basis points over this period. Lastly, the division reduced its adjusted cost base by EUR 2.5 billion since full year 2018. We will not be transferring any additional assets to or from the core businesses. The remaining CRU assets will roll off over time. These are mostly interest rate derivatives but also include the Polish FX mortgage portfolio and certain other FICC and equities assets. As we move to 2023, we will also introduce what we believe is best practice for internal service cost allocations which I will outline on Slide 43. Going forward, we will allocate infrastructure cost to businesses based on a new driver-based cost management methodology. The methodology will be applied to both infrastructure costs allocated to businesses as well as to some expenses that were previously held in C&O. As a result, we will get better transparency of the drivers of infrastructure costs, resulting in an improved cost allocation to the individual businesses, while highlighting potential areas for further cost savings. The group cost income ratio and return on tangible equity metrics are unaffected by the change in allocations of infrastructure costs, but the respective divisional metrics will be impacted by this change going forward. Finally, costs defined as shareholder expenses will continue to be held centrally in C&O and will not be allocated to divisions, consistent with our current practice. Let me now turn to the group outlook for 2023 on Slide 44. Today, we discussed how we successfully performed against our strategic objectives through Compete to win and have delivered a transformed bank. As the environment changes, so does our business mix and the more favorable interest rate backdrop has created a strong step off for further revenue growth. So let me conclude with a few words on how we see 2023. With regard to revenues, we anticipate performance around the midpoint of a range between EUR 28 billion to EUR 29 billion, reflecting the impact of interest rates, particularly in the corporate and private banks, as well as robust organic business growth. This will be partially offset by some normalization in other businesses, notably FICC. Turning to costs. We remain focused on delivering positive operating leverage, a key driver as we work towards our 2025 goals. We anticipate inflationary pressures, but also benefits from our cost efficiency measures and for 2023, we expect to keep our non-interest expenses broadly flat to 2022. For provision for credit losses, as Olivier explained, our risk management discipline, coupled with a more benign macroeconomic and credit outlook in recent weeks, support our guidance of 25 to 30 basis points of average loans for 2023. Our current outlook would tend towards the lower end of that range, in other words, essentially flat to 2022. Finally, we reaffirm our commitment to our capital distribution goals in respect of the years from 2021 through 2025. As Christian mentioned earlier, we reaffirm our dividend path, and we will provide an update on share repurchases when there's greater clarity on the timing and extent of regulatory headwinds and the direction of the macroeconomic environment. To summarize, the macro backdrop contains many uncertainties, but we believe we are well placed to capture the benefits of our positioning, particularly through revenue growth, continued risk discipline and our cost reduction initiatives. With that, let me hand back to Ioana, and we look forward to your questions.

Thank you, James. Operator, we're now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] And we have the first question from Daniele Brupbacher from UBS.

I mean, the first question was really a bit high level. And I mean, obviously, 2022 was the -- basically the final year of the Complete to win strategy and I was just wondering, obviously, there is clear achievements, there were also probably some disappointments, there were tailwinds or headwinds. And I was just wondering whether you could share your thoughts around this and how you assess all that and probably also going into 2023, how you think about the key uncertainty, right? Is it advisory origination coming back? Is it fixed rating, the risk cost costs? Just how you feel about this? And then secondly, the second question was really about the 2023 revenue outlook. And here, I mean, you gave the group, but can you talk a little bit about the divisions, what the drivers are and how we should think about this one and probably how the year started so far, that would be useful.

Right, Daniele, thank you very much for your question, also from my side, apologies for the interruption. On your question, I do think that before we go into the individual strengths and potentially also areas of further improvement, let me, first of all, say, Daniele, that I think this bank is immensely proud of that, what we have achieved. And this -- not a lot of people thought that this turnaround, which is an absolutely sustainable turnaround is doable, but we who have been closed with the bank and being in these positions always saw the potential. And I think the most important what we achieved over the last 3.5 years is actually the reinvigorated passion, the focus and the pride of the organization. And I really would like to highlight it here because I think people too often really miss the point that we are talking about a people's business with our employees but also with regards that the key item we are doing is covering clients. And therefore, you need absolutely proud people who are doing their job with passion. And that's what we managed over the last 3 years, and that's actually -- which is also the basis for everything which we think we can achieve in the next 3 years. Now why did we do this? Because I think this organization found its balance, found its direction and found its strategies. And this is, I would say, to your question, one of the clear achievements of this transformation and also what we have seen in 2022 is actually our strong focus on the 4 business areas where we think we are able to compete and where the clients really want to work with us. And we see that when we look at gaining market shares, by the way, not only in the FICC business, but also in other areas of the bank, corporate banking in Germany, wealth management international. We clearly win market share because we know we are acting there, we are operating there where we have our strengths. Then I do think over the last 3 years, we would have never been able to actually do this what we have done without a first-class risk management. We had 2 crisis, so to say, to manage, the pandemic, but also, obviously, the impact of this awful war in the Ukraine. And you can only do it if you have complete belief in your capacity and capabilities as a risk manager. We have had that for the last 13, 14, 15 years. You see that with our results. And again, in 2022, we had an outstanding year in terms of risk measure. By the way, Daniele, both on the front-office side as well as on the back-office side in risk management itself. And then obviously, the focused discipline which we had in the CRU, James was talking about that, which really helped us to trade the capital, which we then use in order to invest it into the business. And last but not least, it's the cost culture. And that is something in Deutsche Bank, which we haven't had before. And I think I can judge on it because I've been here now for 33 years but the cost culture for 3.5 or 4.5 years now, where we took out over the last 3 years, more than EUR 3 billion of costs is something which earmarks a new era. Now this brings me to the point of where are areas of improvement. I wouldn't call it area of improvement, but it's clear that we cannot lose this cost focus. And James talked about this in his prepared remarks, how we want to take out the next EUR 2 billion just in the '22 -- in the year '22. Out of the EUR 2 billion, we already took out EUR 490 million out of these 4 areas, i.e., German restructuring, technology architecture, front-to-back process redesign, infrastructure efficiency, all the measures we mentioned on Page 29 of this presentation. EUR 490 million has been already done in 2022. And that focus will go on. And on top of that, we know we need to do more. And therefore, we set up an incremental cost management program which even delivers more also in order to find the right response to the inflation which we see in the economy. And therefore, I think costs cannot go away. Second point where we need to, in my view, improve is regulatory remediation. We know there's a lot of work ongoing. We have achieved a lot, but we cannot let loose. We need to do it. It's a foundation in order to grow sustainably and hence, all focus also on that in the year '23. And last but not least, I would say, while we got really good at it, I think we can even further improve the way we are doing our portfolio allocation, capital allocation, in particular in volatile times like we have it right now. I think we have shown the strength in 2022. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to show these results. But obviously, you can learn from that and with all the tools and techniques and instruments we have to even make sure that we shift our business there where from a capital return within our global house bank strategy, there is the best return. If we think about this then, I would say these are the clear strengths and also areas where we can improve. And if I take that forward, then I do believe this really is paving the way for '23. And '23 to your second question, clearly, we see an upside on the revenue side. James was talking about the net interest tailwind, which we have of approximately EUR 1 billion. But it's not only that, it's also the underlying business, which we are doing, in particular on the stable business, which are growing. The corporate bank is growing quarter-by-quarter. And if I look into that what we have achieved in Q4 compared to Q3, Q2, steady improvement. If I now see how January started, by the way, not only in the corporate bank or also in other businesses, but also again in the corporate bank and see the forecast for Q1, this is a steady increase of the stable business, not only based on the net interest income, but also by the underlying growing volume we are writing with our clients. And hence, we feel confident about the EUR 28.5 million of revenues with a clearly increasing revenue side on the corporate bank. Also in the private bank, from an operating side, we are clearly increasing the revenues, obviously, having the tailwind of the interest rates. We had a very good start also in Asset Management because you've seen where the markets are. I think we plan cautiously there. So I see real momentum there. And in the Investment Bank, to be honest, I'm hugely proud of what we have achieved. You have seen the market share gains. And in January, again, shows me that the underlying flow of our business with the clients is absolutely showing the momentum which we have seen before. And therefore, I think we have a good chance actually in the Investment Bank to show a revenue result on previous year's basis. Even if there is a slight decline in the macro businesses or in the FICC business, we can also see that parts of the O&A business is coming back with a very stable financing business. So you have 2 business with clearly increasing revenues, Corporate Bank and Private Bank, you have a stable asset management and you have an investment bank, which is stable in itself and very sustainable. And then you take the net interest income, which is obviously a tailwind into account. And hence, we are coming to a clearly increased revenue line in '23. Taking them flat cost and flat LLP, where we see the environment into account, we see another nicely evolving pretax profit next year, which is better than this year.

The next question comes from Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs.

So first on costs, what gives you the confidence on holding non expense -- noninterest expense is flat in 2023, especially in light of that cost miss in 2022. Can you provide any further details regarding the building blocks there that underpin those assumptions? And also any updates on the medium-term cost outlook and cost measures? Then secondly, on the 2025 targets, which you've reiterated -- has the makeup of how you get to those targets changed significantly, given what we've seen, I mean, the moves in rates, moves in inflation, the broader macro and obviously, credit conditions. And then finally, just on share repurchases, following up from one of your earlier comments, James, what are the regulatory headwinds you're waiting to hear on? How large could they be? When do you expect to have that clarified? And therefore, when do you expect to be able to give a number on the buybacks?

Thanks for the questions, Chris. I'll take all 3, and Christian and Olivier may want to add. First of all, on costs, look, we've established a run rate. So what gives me confidence about '23 is we exited '22 at the run rate we essentially have to preserve now through the year. And that means that a lot of the initiatives that we've talked about, as Christian mentioned, the key deliverables that we bucket for you on Page 29 of the deck that are in flight. And that's, I think, an important thing to understand. This isn't stuff on a white board. This is where the initiatives are funded, we have delivery underway, we already have delivered on a significant portion of it and we have great governance and tracking of how we bring this all to fruition. That's underway. And in a sense, those deliverables offset the impact of inflation and other investments that we make in the business over time. But the critical thing is to continue to manage to that run rate. Now obviously, there's some variability if it's about 1.6, 1.65 billion per month, there'll obviously be some variability. But in essence, it's trying to manage that flat given all of the moving parts. We'll also have the single resolution fund assessment, non-operating expenses and where possible, we obviously seek to influence those to be as small as possible. In a sense, that has to continue now for several years. Obviously, there'll be some FX impact over the years on that run rate, but that's sort of what the mindset is and how we think of the building blocks. As Christian outlined, we're always working to find more measures on the expenses and peel the onion. And to be honest, the deeper you get into it, the more tools you build to understand and control your expense base, I think the more opportunity you also find which is good because, as I mentioned, inflation has been running ahead of what we anticipated, say, a year ago. On the targets and the path to the targets, it's a similar story. Revenue growth with flat expenses, drives operating leverage and the cost income ratio down, ROTE up. We feel really good, as Christian outlined about the compound annual growth rate of revenues that we laid out in March. And if anything, the '22 start on that path was better, interest rates a little better and the underlying drivers also better. On credit, we entered a cycle that perhaps we didn't expect prior to the beginning of the war, but we see a normalization of credit as we get into '24 and '25 and we feel pretty confident on the book as you've heard Olivier described and he can go into as well. So while the environment has clearly been dynamic and the cost base is reset upwards in part with inflation, in part with some investments that we made last year, I'd say the overall picture is actually pretty consistent with what we shared with you in March. Lastly, on the share repurchases, the reg items that are on the way, really, the most significant is what we refer to as the wholesale IMI or internal models investigation. So where -- we've been -- as you know, other banks as well, there have been reviews underway on the applicability of new EBA guidelines in our model environment. And there, the reason for caution is both the timing and magnitude of that item as well as potential offsets that we've been working on, whether to do with other models or limitations that have been applied in our IRB sort of world. And so with the uncertainty, as I say, timing and magnitude and therefore, volatility, we think it's just prudent to hold on to the capital to ensure that we wouldn't be distributing an amount that while by the end of the year, we would have been very comfortable distributing, on an interim basis, it might have made us look a little fan and potentially influence our ability to support balance sheet growth, support clients in this environment. So hopefully, that gives you a little color on how we've been thinking about it and what is coming down the pipe. Operator, I think we can go to the next question. Thank you, Chris.

The next question is -- comes from Nicolas Payen from Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have 2, please. One on risk management and one follow-up on cost. The first one on risk management. You mentioned your guidance of 25 to 30 basis points cost of risk. I want to know what are your underlying assumptions beyond this range, not before 25 and what would drive an increase to 30 basis points. So in other words, what's your sensitivity into range. And if we could also have a bit of color on where we stand vis-a-vis the scenario of the gas -- complete gas cut off within this guidance? And the second question, the follow-up on costs. If your revenue growth does not materialize as you expect, what kind of flexibility do you ask? Because in your prepared remarks, you mentioned additional potential measure on costs, notably in agile management of headcount numbers. So if we could have a bit of color on this item, please.

Sure. Thank you for the question on credit loss provision. As you know, we have guided a range of 25 to 30 basis points. And your question is really, how do we get to the bottom of this range, i.e., 25 basis points, which would take us flat to what we've done in 2022. Well, really the tailwinds that I can identify are: number one, the prospect of perhaps a shallower recession in the U.S. Inflation is trimming back and we have a prospect of normalization of interest rate rises this year and also the decline of -- around energy concerns. Due to the mild winter to the different measures consumers have taken and also the Germany's EUR 200 billion package on energy prices is a key factor. The fourth one is really China reopening that nobody forecasted and that is beneficial to growth. So for instance, different research are now not forecasting really a recession for the full year for Germany, but perhaps more stagnation. So all these tailwinds would guide us towards the bottom of the range. To your question, how do we go to the top of the range would be any downside risk around these factors, really. So that will be my answer. The second part of your question concerns the -- at the end of Q3, when we had a lot of uncertainty, and we are very concerned coming out of the summer around the -- the possible energy squeeze. We did a lot of detailed work in our book to estimate the possible impact around that. But both -- and we guided for the next 18 months at 20 bps down time, but both in terms of likelihood but also in terms of impact because of the measures I've mentioned about the government and how people are adapting with new energy supplies, we see this downside risk as to be discounted, both in likelihood and in magnitude.

And Nicola, your second question, the flexibility of the expense base to adjust to the downside potentially in revenues is something we've talked about over the past several years. And as you know, our answers have been -- we weren't comfortable in an environment where we were managing a shrinking expense base and going through the transformation, we didn't feel that the levers we had to the downside sort of variable expenses, we're really sufficient to offset variability on the revenue side. We think we're pivoting to a better place in that regard over '23 in the subsequent years. And why do I say that? I think it's on both lines. As more of our expense base shifts to the "stable business" more predictable, you have less variability, if you like, that you need to account for. So that helps in the equation. And the other thing is, as we as we now move to an environment where we have cost saves underway, we have an investment profile that is, if you like, fully funded and we're in execution mode, if you like, on the cost reduction, I do think we get to a different place in terms of flexibility. We started talking about this a little bit, so it's not just marketing expenses, bonus and retention and the truly variable expenses in the cost base, there's also decisions we can make more in discretionary costs and investment timing, that with, over time, give us more flexibility. So the answer to your question is, I think we've made some real progress towards having more flexibility to manage. As you heard us say in the second quarter, we're very cognizant, though, of preserving investments that are critical to our future. And that's -- hence, that's the balance we've been working to strike. Thanks for your question.

The next question is from Anke Reingen from RBC.

The first one is a follow-up on the cost. Sorry, if I missed it. But what is sort of like the direction in cost from '23 to '25? Is it considering the cost savings and less [SIF] inflation, is it -- should it be sort of like flattish? Or could it be even trending down and maybe what inflation assumptions have you taken in there? And then on the revenue guidance and your increase in upgrade from the higher rate benefit, the 0.5 percentage points in the CAGR, wouldn't it be -- why didn't you change the CAGR, the 3.5% to 4.5%. Is it just rounding? Was I guess, everything else sounds a bit more optimistic as well or am I mixing up different years here.

Look, Anke, let me take the first one on the cost side. So overall, obviously, with the inflation where it is, it is not that easy to exactly forecast that. But our view when you look at the next 3 years is actually to operate on the basis of flat costs. That's what we want to achieve. Therefore, we came out last year in March 2022 and since, we think we need to take out and we can take out the extra EUR 2 billion. This is exactly what is detailed out on Page 29, where we're making good progress. And as James is saying, this is not just the PowerPoint, there are underlying key deliverables, which are monitored on a weekly and monthly basis, and we are confident to achieve that. Now given the situation where we are in with inflation a bit stickier and higher than we even thought in February and March, we do believe that we need to do more things like James was saying. And hence, we are working on additional incremental measures in order to make sure that our costs are staying flat over the next 3 years. And that obviously then works into our operating leverage. So in this regard, we have an assumption that the inflation is coming back, clearly to below 5% in 2024 and then to 2% in 2025. We know this is always very complex to forecast at this point in time. But that is something which we have, so to say, in our plan. But the key assumption is and what I can see also from the additional tools, James and Rebecca are working on for instance, on driver-based cost management. And the way we can now really see the transparency and drive the cost is that we need to do more than the EUR 2 billion, and we are able to do it.

And then, the compound growth rate, look, we like the idea of reiterating the target. Obviously, our confidence in the high end and potentially exceeding it is higher today than perhaps a year ago but we didn't see a need necessarily to raise that target at this point in time. We can happily live with a target that looks conservative as things stand. Remember, again, FX has a pretty big impact, and there's lots of other things. The other thing I just want to say is, remember that there was a business growth aspect in the compound growth rates that we provided in March. So we've broken out the interest rate-driven improvement, which is good. But we're also confident about the underlying growth rate given the drivers that you've seen, for example, the 41 billion of net new business volume in the PB in 2022. So we're going to keep on working at that and if we can exceed that target, so much the better.

The next question comes from Tom Hallett from KBW.

A couple of questions from me, please. So on the deposit betas, it's been a big talk of the last few months. Could you just remind us with some color on the retail corporate deposit dynamics? And does it remain below your target rate and then secondly, on capital buybacks. I mean, if I'm not mistaken, you said maybe January 1 next year, you'll be operating with about 13.2% equity level. And in the meantime, we've got a lot of Basel legislation. You've got Basel III kind of finalization, stuff coming through, payout for dividends and so forth. It feels that even if the market conditions there as good as they are, the chance of the buyback still pretty low. Is that fair? Is that the best way to observe it? How else should I kind of understand that?

Thanks for the question, Tom. So on deposit beta, we talked about this a little bit last quarter. We look at in essence, four portfolios, dollar and euro and then our private bank, that is retail and corporate bank books. And what we're continuing to see at the moment is the betas or elasticity as we see it showing a very large lag and very significant in percentage terms. Obviously, we don't go into it in detail. But that lag continues in essence, to surprise on the upside at the moment, reflecting, I think that the models that we build around this historical behaviors, you don't really capture what happens in a rate cycle where your starting point is negative or 0 depending on the currency and the pace of the rate increases at the short end is as rapid as it has been. And so we've seen that lag. Obviously, in dollar it's catching up to the models over time, more quickly than in euros, where we're still at the very early part of the tightening cycle. But it's one of the reasons we saw, I think, a pretty significant upside in '22, some of which will carry into '23 on lag benefits relative to our earlier models. So that's really encouraging. On the timing and the conservatism and buybacks, I think, Chris, you may want to add to some thoughts.

No. I mean, James has said it. Look, first of all, I think it's a clear statement that we reconfirmed our EUR 8 billion of capital distribution until 2025, for the years '21 to '25. You have seen that despite there is quite a volatile environment outside there, we increased our dividend but to this distribution, there is obviously or this consists, obviously, of the instrumental buybacks. And we remain optimistic that we will use this instrument and that we also have a chance to use it this year. But I think you also deserve Deutsche Bank management which is always looking at it from a conservative point of view. James just outlined that there are still some uncertainties in particular on the regulatory side. We want to wait for that. But if I look also how we started into the year from a capital ratio with 13.4, which, by the way, I think, was a very positive jump off. If I see how the business is going, I remain very optimistic that we can do this but you deserve it at a time where we can talk exact numbers and exact timing. And hence, you see an optimistic management also with regard to that instrument.

Okay. And James, just a quick follow-up. I mean, on the [ Basel ] [indiscernible] impact, is there any update on that because some of your peers, it seems to be diluted a little bit versus, say, a year ago's expectations. Is there any changes in Deutsche?

Yes, Tom. So a lot of moving parts in that as well. I mean, the truth is the capital calculations and forecasts are -- have lots and lots of moving parts. On Basel III but we're encouraged by what we see in the proposals that have come out of Brussels and going into the trial log. So in fairness, we probably assumed in the estimate we gave you last year, consistent, by the way, going back several years of around $25 billion in RWA terms, there's been some puts and takes in terms of the various moving parts of it. And of course, the other question is what's your step off going into the move from December 31, '24 to January '25. So lots of moving parts. We don't see an improvement versus the 25 right now. We actually probably see a deterioration of perhaps 5 billion, but really all driven by up risk RWA. And that, in turn, would be driven by higher revenues in 2025, but that's an estimate. And that requires -- going to be lots of moving parts again there, FX, revenue growth and the final rule. So I wouldn't want to paint too negative a picture, but I also wouldn't want to -- doesn't suddenly go away from that 25 billion estimate that we've given you now pretty consistently since, I think, 2018 or maybe 2019.

The next question comes from Adam Terelak from Mediobanca.

I just want to clarify on capital and reg inflation. If you're taking reg inflation this year, I mean, does that front-load any of that Basel impact? Clearly, you've got RWA inflation ahead of a credit risk floor, in output, then you think one would be kind of just front-loading that impact. And so is it just a timing issue when it comes to this year's reg inflation. And then secondly, I wanted to ask on the [ DTA ] write-up. Obviously, you've taken EUR 1.4 billion. I'm less interested on this year, but more how quickly that comes back through your capital. So you've given us your tax rate expectations, but what does your cash tax rate look like? I assume it's significantly lower, meaning more cap generation in the next few years? So any color on those would be great.

Thanks, Adam. So on reg inflation, again, it's one of the moving parts. As I mentioned, step off is a consideration in terms of how much comes on overnight from December to January. Yes, there is a little bit of netting in terms of higher floors, LGD and PD floors in the IRB going into Basel III implementation in '25 but there are other things that move in the other direction. And hence, my answer to Tom, which is lots of moving parts, [ OpRisk ] is probably the only one that if you net it all out, that has probably moved in the negative direction, but it includes that concept of bringing forward. On the [ DTA ] write-up, a couple of things to say. First of all, this year's impact, as it was last year, is really on the U.S. tax position, the U.S. tax loss carryforwards. Really encouraging given it reflects the enhancement of the value of the franchise. Around cash taxes, look, because they're disregarded, the DTA itself is disregarded in the ratio and then the GAAP earnings essentially reflect an accrual, the impact is relatively modest and over time as to the value of the cash of the tax shield reflected in your capital accounts. So I wouldn't see that as a major driver of capital accretion. The other complexity that exists around this in the U.S. is, as you know, the U.S. has become as a jurisdiction for tax, much more complicated over the past several years with the beat and the minimum tax level. So we've factored all of that into our current estimate of the utilization of those tax characteristics but as you can imagine, there will be some considerable moving parts there as well.

That EUR 1.4 billion should come into capital at some stage, but just need to be very, very patient for.

It's over time, and there is a cash tax benefit that is accrued, that is recognized over several years. That's fair.

The next question comes from Magdalena Stoklosa from Morgan Stanley.

I've got 2. One is about the cost of risk target and another one about volumes and what you see from the kind of client business perspective in corporate and PB. So maybe first on the cost of risk. I know we've discussed it a little bit already. But my core question really is, when you look at that range, and I know kind of you talked about kind of various -- what can get us to the bottom versus the top of the range, a lot of macro assumptions. But what is your underlying base case macro and kind of underpinning that range? What is that scenario with key variables? And secondly, I'm very interested in what you think about the kind of idiosyncratic risks as well as the sector ones. Because, of course, over the last couple of weeks, we have seen kind of news flow of [ Adani ] or Americanas. And of course, you can argue that this is -- these are accounting issues, but we kind of seem to be having these idiosyncratic kind of relatively large risks or potentially large risk versus the sector one, more macro-driven ones. How do you reconcile those risks as well within the guidance? And a question around the volumes around the Corporate Bank in particular, because, of course, we've talked about the revenue growth in 2022, which I have to say, across the board in cases. But what sort of business volumes do you actually see in the corporate bank over the next, let's just say, 2 years? Because we are kind of starting to see weakness in originations across the board.

Thank you for your question. I'll start on the cost of credit risk. So for 2023, we see the credit provision that we said would be between 25 and 30 basis points on our loan book at amortized cost has been driven really by stage 3 provisioning, right? So we -- meaning that we've done quite a careful bottom-up analysis in the different sectors of our book of where we want to provision to take into account. Higher rates recession, so especially on mid-cap, on commercial real estate leverage lending. So -- and we do not see really forward-looking information or macroeconomic variable as being a key driver like it has been in 2022 where we had EUR 358 million, I believe, of our over 25 basis points driven by by the deterioration in the macroeconomic environment. So the base case -- in the base case of the better outlook would definitely mean that we could have some releases coming from this effect. But really, the rest of the creditors provision are driven by this bottom-up analysis with a sectoral analysis and have taken into account the headwinds that we've all talked about, higher rates, higher -- from a high inflation recession et cetera. In terms of using credit risk, of course, when starting this exercise, you don't foresee everything that you can encounter during the year. You do account for some. I won't comment on specific situation, as you can expect. But as I have outlined in my talk, we do have for every exposure, quite a clear framework either industry risk limits that prevent exposure to higher risk, higher risk industries, a contribute framework that's quite robust that would limit exposure to higher-risk country as well as a concentration framework that's also very important to avoid large concentration risk. And when structuring and lending, our lending standard do lead to outcomes where we well collateralized and where we have structural enhancements. And that's what I would say, that gives some confidence around our loan book and managing the idiosyncratic event.

At later and on the growth side in the corporate bank and then later in the Private Bank. Look, on the one hand, we see still an increasing loan book in the corporate bank. It's a little bit more on the short-term side. That's the change which we have seen in the second half of 2022 because corporates are also obviously securing their liquidity, a little bit less on long-term investment facilities. But in particular, the corporate bank next to, obviously, the benefit of the NII, we see an increasing flow and revenues from payments, trade finance, and our overall cash management business, not only for corporates, but also with regard to our financial institutions where we are doing cash management with. And that is where we focused our business on, where we also invested a lot into technology. So if you think about the growth rate for the next 3 years, then actually, a lot of people think that most of that will come from the NII. Its actually that even more is coming from the underlying volume, which we see in cash management payments and then the trade finance. So it's very much diversified, and that's exactly also what we see now in the month of January. In the private bank, it's also very balanced. We see growth next to the NII, in particular, coming from the International Wealth Management business. We are gaining market share, in particular in Asia. So we are focusing on that business. In Germany, I think a good revenue development of course, with less in, for instance, private mortgages because the demand in private mortgages is reduced, given the environment we are in. But if I then look at the investment business and the payment business in the Private Bank, but also actually on the consumer finance business, we are doing well. And therefore, I would say that we are also seeing there an increase even in the year '23. So overall, next to NII, a pretty diversified revenue stream. And the nice thing for us is that the revenue increase outside NII is at least exactly the same amount or if not higher, than simply than the NII contribution.