DNB Bank ASA (DNB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hello, everyone, and welcome to DNB's pre-close call for the first quarter 2024. Just would like to remind you that there will be no new information during this call. This is just a reminder of what we have communicated to the market and which could have an effect on the first quarter. As usual, I will start with the NII and capital and [ Anne ] will go through the rest of the P&L. Starting with the NII, just to remind you that there will be one -- number of interest day is 1 day less than in the fourth quarter which will have a negative effect of approximately NOK 125 million. We also have had a strengthening of the average Norwegian kroner during the quarter. So we will have a negative FX effect on the volume. On the -- we have also some tailwinds, NII tailwinds from the rate hikes in Q4 and in February. We will have full quarterly effect of the 225 basis point rate hikes from the 22nd of October and the 26th of November, respectively. We will have a partial effect of the 25 bps rate hike announced in December, effective from the 20th of February. On the volume side, in Q4, we reported negative 0.5% in both personal banking and also in the corporate banking. Statistics Norway continued to report of lower credit demand in the market. As we said in the fourth quarter, we expect to see continued muted loan growth for the first half in 2024. For DNB, profitable growth remains the focus. We also, as we said in the Q4, we saw some change in customer behavior in the second half last year where a customer quite rationally prepaid loans from transaction accounts to a greater extent and transferred deposits from transaction accounts to higher-yielding alternatives. Also, as we said before, competition in the Norwegian market is fierce, but rational. And we are following, of course, the development, particularly closely now given the low market growth. I just want to remind you about the Central Bank's expected rate path. We are now at 4.5% and expected to remain stable at 4.5% until September or December, where we expect the first rate hike and then to decrease down to 3% during the end of 2026. Going over to capital. In Q4, we reported a CET1 ratio of 18.2%. NFSA's expectation is 16.8%. That means a buffer of 140 bps. We have had a weakening of the Norwegian kroner when we look at period-to-period. That means that we'll have a negative effect on the capital. Remind you of the FX sensitivity, which is where we see a 10% change in the Norwegian kroner that will have a negative -- that will have effect on the CET1 ratio of 20 to 25 basis points. Just to remind you that our ordinary dividend for 2023 is NOK 16 and the ex date is the 30th of April. It is to be expected that the Board of Directors will ask the AGM for a similar share buyback authorization as we had seen in previous years, around 3.5%. And by that, I will leave the word to [ Anne . ]

Sure. I'll start with commission and fees and other operating income. Keep in mind that the Easter holidays fell in Q1 this year, not Q2 as it usually does, which typically has a slightly negative impact on activity levels in fee areas such as real estate broking and investment banking services. Starting with Investment Banking services. As you may recall, we typically see a seasonally lower activity level in Q1 compared to Q4. Real estate brokerage, a little bit of an opposite trend, where we, in Q1, typically see a seasonally higher activity level than in Q4 due to the Christmas holidays in Q4. And the sale of new builds is still at record low levels. Asset Management, we see positive -- we see that positive market development drives AUM higher per the latest public statistics. And also keep in mind that we in the fourth quarter had a boost in asset management fees from the booking of performance fees of almost NOK 240 million. In money transfers, we continue to see a high level of card use. However, keep in mind that the third and fourth quarters are typically seasonally higher activity quarters than the first. And finally, net insurance result is materially negatively impacted every year in the first quarter after the introduction of IFRS 17 due to the booking or recognition of expected losses arising from loss-making or onerous contracts. Moving on to net gains on financial instruments at fair value. Starting with customer revenues in DNB markets or FICC, we continue to see a high activity level in this area. But keep in mind that Q4 is typically a seasonally higher activity level than Q1. The mark-to-market effect on the AT1 and the basis swaps will be announced shortly. Just a reminder on the outstanding amounts of AT1, we have USD 850 million AT1s outstanding and we have SEK 4.95 billion AT1 outstanding. So that was USD 850 million and SEK 4.95 billion. Moving on to costs. A seasonally lower activity level in Q1 that we typically see in Q4, all else equal, typically leads to lower costs. 2023 salary inflation in Norway came in at 5.3%. The Central Bank expects salary inflation in Norway to come in at 4.9% for 2024. The annual centralized wage negotiation process is now ongoing in Norway and is expected to conclude during the month of April. And a reminder that normalized pension expenses are expected to be slightly higher than NOK 400 million in a quarter. And the compensation scheme is primarily linked to the development in global equities, which has performed well year-to-date. Finally, impairments and asset quality. We continue to monitor the portfolio closely and we are still generally comfortable with the risk in the portfolio. As you know, impairments will vary from quarter-to-quarter, driven by potential changes in macro input factors in the ECL model and/or company-specific events as we've seen in the past quarters. Given the elevated level of uncertainty these days given the macro picture, it would be natural to see more company-specific events in this environment. But again, we do not yet see any systemic areas of concern in our portfolio. Finally, a kind request or a reminder to please submit your consensus estimates to Andreas by close of business on Tuesday, April 9. And with that, we thank you for your attention and wish you a good rest of the day. Thank you.

Thank you.