ABN Amro Stock

Welcome to ABN AMRO's Q2 2026 Analyst and Investor Call. Please note, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the call over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to ABN AMRO's Q2 '26 Results Presentation. I'm joined today by our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager, and our CRO, Serena Fioravanti. I will cover the key messages, our progress on strategy and our financial results for the quarter. After the presentation, as usual, we will open the line for your questions.

But first, let me begin with the key second quarter highlights on Slide 2. ABN AMRO delivered another strong quarter, supported by continued client activity and high fees. Net profit increased almost 30% year-on-year to EUR 781 million, with return on equity improving to 12.1%. We saw continued business momentum with growth in lending and deposits.

Commercial net interest income increased strongly, and we have raised our full year '26 guidance to around EUR 6.8 billion, now including NIBC. Fees increased further, reflecting strong growth of EUR 25 billion in client assets and another quarter of good Clearing results.

Progress on cost reduction is ahead of schedule, and we have lowered our full year '26 cost guidance to around EUR 5.5 billion, also including NIBC. Credit quality remains solid with another quarter of limited impairments. Our pro forma CET1 ratio strengthened to 15.9%, supported by growth in capital-light businesses.

We set our interim dividend at EUR 0.68 per share based on 40% of our year-to-date net profit. These Q2 results reflect our progress on the strategic priorities of delivering profitable growth, rightsizing our cost base and optimizing capital allocation.

Let me now address each of these strategic priorities in turn. We are pleased to have completed the NIBC acquisition. It strengthens our position in attractive client segments and adds capabilities that fit well with our strategy. Including NIBC, we have realized around 3/4 of our deposit growth ambition and around 80% of our mortgage growth ambition. In July, we announced the partnership between Worldline and ICS. This partnership will strengthen our credit card offering, enhance customer experience and accelerate innovation. This outsourcing concerns up to 450 FTEs and will deliver further efficiency gains.

Turning to Wealth Management, client assets grew by more than 7% this quarter, reflecting strong market performance and commercial efforts that generated EUR 2.3 billion of core net new assets. We are gaining traction in our priority segments, females, Next Gen clients and dual-client business owners.

Inflows are typically higher in the second half of the year. So we remain on track to deliver between EUR 5 billion to EUR 7 billion of net new assets annually. Following the legal merger of HAL in June, our focus now shifts to the technical IT integration in Q4 and the delivery of synergies. Corporate Banking is also on the right track with increased cross-sell and another strong quarter for Clearing. We also continued to grow in sectors linked to European transition themes, including defense.

Now turning to our progress on the cost base, we continue to simplify our organization and improve efficiency. In the second quarter, FTEs declined by around 250, mainly internal FTEs. While the pace of reductions has moderated, the cumulative FTE reductions are ahead of schedule at 45% of our '28 target.

Over the past 1.5 years, we realized around EUR 300 million of our EUR 900 million savings target for '28. The savings mainly reflect our ongoing organizational transformation and the streamlining of our IT landscape with a growing contribution from automation and GenAI initiatives. We now have around 50 use cases in production, including our GenAI-powered client voicebot and a GenAI knowledge assistant for KYC and AML analysts.

As we scale, tokenomics helps us manage AI token use across these applications, balancing consumption with quality, risk and business value. This enables us to select the right model for each use case. Recently, we also announced our partnership with Mistral.

Access to European AI models is important because it gives us greater choice in selecting the right model for each use case. Now turning to capital optimization, since our Capital Markets Day, we have realized EUR 9 billion of RWA optimization in total, including around EUR 2 billion this quarter. Corporate Banking has contributed EUR 6 billion to these reductions and achieved more than 60% of its strategic RWA reduction ambition.

Looking ahead, we expect a number of significant RWA developments in the second half of the year. On the one hand, consolidating NIBC will add around EUR 6.6 billion next quarter. This is expected to reduce our CET1 ratio by around 70 to 75 basis points.

On the other hand, in Q4, the termination of the DNB mortgage floor is expected to reduce RWAs by around EUR 7 billion. The slide does not show several smaller items that will also affect RWAs. The annual update to the EBA property loss rate will reduce RWAs by around EUR 1.5 billion in Q3.

The sale of our personal loan business, Alfam, will reduce RWAs by a further EUR 1 billion in Q4. RWA increases are expected from business growth and potentially some other updates. These are harder to quantify today. We will conduct our capital assessment in Q4, our first under our distribution policy of up to 100% of net profits.

Now turning to the financial performance for the second quarter, starting with the Dutch economy on Slide 7, Dutch GDP grew by a healthy 0.4% in the second quarter, better than expected and positive for this year's outlook. At the same time, inflation remains elevated with further upside risk to energy prices from the conflict in the Middle East.

The ECB deposit rate is expected to reach 2.5% by year-end following a rate hike in September. The Dutch housing market has cooled somewhat following years of significant price increases, but prices are still expected to rise by 3% this year and 4% next year. Transaction volumes are expected to decline by 3% in '26 and 4% in '27. However, the persistent shortage of supply continues to put a floor under the housing market.

Other macroeconomic indicators also remain robust, particularly unemployment and bankruptcies, which remain low. Overall, resilient domestic demand, a healthy housing market and gradually rising interest rates provide a supportive [indiscernible] operating environment for the bank.

Now turning to client assets and deposits, total client assets grew by just over EUR 25 billion in Q2, mainly reflecting strong market performance in Wealth Management. Personal & Business Banking also delivered a strong quarter, a growth of more than 4.5%. The shift from cash and time deposits towards advisory and discretionary products continued.

Client deposits increased over EUR 5 billion. Growth reflected both seasonal holiday allowance payments and progress towards our strategic ambitions. And next quarter, NIBC will add to these numbers. Now turning to commercial net interest income.

Commercial NII increased 5% compared to the previous quarter. The main drivers for this increase were higher liability margins, strong Clearing results and higher liability volumes. To put some numbers around this, our liability margin improved by 5 basis points, driven by higher yields on our replicating portfolio.

Average liability volume increased by EUR 4 billion, reflecting both our strategic focus on deposit growth as well as seasonal effects. Finally, other commercial NII rose mainly due to increased financing demand from existing Clearing clients and an expanding client base as we deliver on our Clearing growth ambitions.

Moving to assets, the margin there declined by 2 basis points, reflecting the high share of government-backed capital-light mortgages in new production. These capital-light mortgages are profitable, so this reflects only the difference in margin. Mortgage volume increased by EUR 1.7 billion this quarter with a market share of 18%.

The market is currently very competitive, and we remain disciplined rather than seeking to maintain market share at all costs. Now moving to our guidance for the full year, at the time of our Q1 results, geopolitical developments have pushed interest rates higher, but it wasn't clear whether those levels would persist. So it was too early to change our NII guidance.

Today, forward rates remain broadly at those levels, and we have just reported strong interest results for Q2. We are, therefore, now in a position to raise our full year commercial NII guidance to around EUR 6.8 billion, including NIBC. As our chart shows, the interest rate environment continues to be a tailwind to our liability margin.

For this year, we now assume other commercial NII of around EUR 0.6 billion. This reflects higher clearing NII. And from August 1, we will book NIBC's NII in this line item. Following further integration, NIBC's mortgages and deposits will be booked in asset and liability NII.

Now turning to fee and other income, fee income increased 2% quarter-on-quarter and reached a record level. Positive market performance lifted Wealth Management fees during Q2. Corporate Banking rose as well. Clearing continued its strong Q1 performance and cross-sell led to several large corporate finance deals this quarter.

P&BB fees were broadly stable quarter-on-quarter. Other income improved strongly to EUR 106 million. This was mainly due to favorable ALM results from economic hedges. Together, record high fees and improved other income contributed to a 6% quarter-on-quarter increase in operating income.

Now turning to costs, our priority is to deliver on our strategic targets, which require disciplined cost management. I am pleased with the progress we have made so far. Our efficiency is improving with positive developments in areas such as lower IT costs. These developments are reflected in our full year '26 cost guidance.

Our headline cost guidance remains EUR 5.5 billion. However, this figure now includes NIBC. Second half cost will -- second half of the year cost will depend on the outcome of the collective labor agreement negotiations, which will resume in September. We are not updating our cost target for 2028.

The remaining savings will be more spread over time and the full cost reductions from synergies and outsourcing will only be achieved beyond '28. We also need to invest in areas such as data centers, AI, cyber resilience and commercial initiatives. That said, our good start has created some headroom, but it is too early to change the targets that we presented less than a year ago.

Turning to credit quality, credit quality remains solid with a cost of risk of 4 basis points and a stable Stage 3 ratio at 2.1%. Our Stage 3 coverage ratio declined, and it is now around 14% despite strong provisioning discipline. The decline relates to the derisking of our corporate loan book, the runoff and write-off of highly provisioned files and the greater share of mortgages in the total portfolio.

A recent backtest of our coverage ratio shows that it remained consistently above historical write-offs even during downturns. Impairments were low at EUR 24 million despite ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty. They were largely attributable to a small number of individual files across various sectors.

Following the renewed escalation in the Middle East, we maintained a higher weighting of our negative macroeconomic scenario for Q2. Overall, our credit quality remains solid, reflecting the strength of our loan book, prudent risk management and strong collateral across all our portfolios.

Turning to our capital position, our pro forma CET1 ratio increased to 15.9%. This improvement was driven by the quarterly profit, minus 50% dividend reserve and broadly stable risk-weighted assets. Our reported CET1 ratio, which deducts all profit in line with regulatory requirements, remained stable at 15.3%.

Turning to the key RWA developments, within credit risk, business growth was largely offset by further RWA and portfolio optimizations. Lower market and operational risk contributed further to the decline in our RWAs. Our strong capital position enables continued investment in profitable growth while maintaining a robust capital buffer.

Let me close with the key takeaways from the quarter. Today's results demonstrate disciplined execution against our strategic commitments. We advanced on our priorities of profitable growth, cost base rightsizing and capital optimization. Strong momentum continued across our core products and client segments.

We completed the NIBC acquisition and now include its NII and cost in our full year guidance. We raised our full year commercial NII guidance to around EUR 6.8 billion and effectively lowered our cost guidance to around EUR 5.5 billion, both now including NIBC. 15.9% pro forma CET1 ratio provides capacity to invest in our strategy and pursue profitable growth.

Year-to-date, with the bank tax spread evenly across the year, our pro forma return on equity was 10.9% and our cost-to-income ratio was 56%. We are, therefore, confident without being complacent that we can achieve our financial targets. This concludes my presentation, and we will now take your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Giulia Aurora Miotto from Morgan Stanley.

So my first question, Marguerite, and the quarter was great. But of course, I'm going to focus on capital, 15.9% and with some tailwind also coming by year-end. Can you give us an update on the distribution? Because you are well ahead the 13.75% even if we take 15.3%, assuming 100% distribution, that is still well ahead of the 13.75% target. So I guess the market expects some excess capital distribution.

And why -- second part to the question, why do we need to wait until full year results? A lot of banks do interim excess capital distribution decisions. So why wouldn't ABM be able to do that?

Thank you. We are committed to returning at least EUR 7.5 billion of capital and paying out up to 100% of net profit over '26 to '28. As we already shared, we will do our annual capital assessment with Q4, and we do not want to speculate ahead of that.

We are pleased today with the strong capital position we have and the progress we made on our strategy delivery, but we should also all realize that we are still early in our strategic period, only 2 full quarters year-to-date in a 3-year plan.

So as also mentioned in our CMD and also shared at Q1, if over a period of time, our capital position remains significantly above our target and if we're delivering on our strategic ambitions, we may consider additional distributions.

Understood. And sorry, a follow-up on the targets. Since you are very close or ahead some of the targets, when would be a good time to give an update on beyond 2026? Would it be a year from the CMD, so perhaps Q3?

As I said, we're very pleased with the progress we're making so far, and this is why we've been able to already update and upgrade our commercial NII, but also our cost target for '26. But we are still early in the plan. So for the moment, we are not changing our '28 target. But our mission doesn't stop there, and it doesn't stop in '28.

The next question comes from Namita Samtani from Barclays.

The first one is just on the corporate banking loans in the Corporate Banking division, which were EUR 59.7 billion in the first half of '26 versus EUR 56.5 billion in 2025. It's on Page 9 of the report. So that growth is 11%. I was just wondering, do you think that's a sustainable level to grow and the right thing to do given it's a lower ROE business than personal banking, for example?

And secondly, just relating to that, could you tell me or give an impression of what the margin is like on the corporate loans? And can you give an idea on front book versus back book? And is it, for example, a lower margin than the mortgages?

Thank you very much. So as we shared at our CMD, I think the key marching order for CB is profitability. So we're pursuing profitable growth for CB. And you've seen that in our RWA capital optimization, but you also see it in our disciplined client selection framework. So the loans we originate, and we're also happy with the commercial momentum aim at pursuing profitable growth. This is really the name of the game for CB, and this is what you see in the increased volumes that we shared at Q2 of EUR 2.7 billion.

This being said, we also see because this is a competitive market, margin pressure on the asset side. A lot of the pressure is the outcome, as I mentioned in my presentation, of NHG-backed mortgages in our business mix. So this is also what you see in the slightly lower margins that we shared in our investor presentation slides.

The next question comes from Benjamin Goy from Deutsche Bank.

One follow-up and your -- about the mix of the commercial NII going forward because your asset NII is remarkably stable despite the loan growth you just mentioned. So should we expect something similar and then the pickup in the second half to come by liability NII in particular?

And then secondly, your -- similar question on capital levels. So very strong even with 100% payout seems to be difficult to get close to your target. So just wondering now you have done 2 acquisitions, both seem to be going well and a bit ahead of time, whether you still have appetite for more deals also potentially looking at more cross-border initiatives.

Thank you very much. I hope I heard you well because the line was a little bit dim, but that's okay. Ferdi will answer your question on NII. If I understood correctly, your second question was whether we are considering M&A given our strong capital position. I hope I understood that correctly.

So right now, we are very -- we're very happy with the 2 acquisitions that we've recently made. HAL in Germany that boost our Wealth Management franchise in this country, which is effectively our second market, and NIBC, where we only did the closing on August 1. So right now, we are very much focused on making these acquisitions a success and making them successful by fully also integrating them in our group. This is really what we focused on.

We also shared at the time of our CMD that when it comes to M&A, we have a very strong discipline. We would only consider targets that we would fit in our strategy. We would only consider acquisitions that would be accretive for shareholders, and we would only consider acquisitions where we think execution risk is manageable. So this is really a very disciplined M&A policy approach. Maybe, Ferdi, do you want to comment on commercial NII development?

Yes. Benjamin, maybe underlying coming out of the presentation as well, the drivers of commercial NII were both on the liability side and other commercial NII. Asset NII indeed stable, but underlying, you see healthy growth in mortgages and corporate loans. So why is it stable is specifically the offset in lending margins. They were down quarter-over-quarter by 2 basis points.

As mentioned already by Marguerite, the biggest driver of this is the lower RWA density of our mortgage portfolio that has even amplified under Basel IV for the state-guaranteed mortgages. And you might also see going forward that part of the benefit of the mortgage floor removal will also be partly passed through.

The second effect is the lower LTVs. It's now around 54%. So also there, you have the risk premium reduction. And you should also keep in mind that Alfam will be sold in Q4 consumer loans but average higher lending margins. So overall, the outlook is good, specifically for corporate loans is more or less stable, but also the portfolio, specifically the lower density is the main driver of lower asset margins.

The next question comes from Shrey Srivastava from Citi.

One short term and one longer term, please. The short-term one is we've seen system volume growth in the Netherlands, even excluding this holiday balance effect of 6% to 7% versus you guiding to 3% to 4% underlying. So are you sort of willing to not compete on price and cede some market share because quite frankly, you can afford to do so?

And my second question is you've now made acquisitions in German Wealth Management. You've made acquisitions in Dutch retail. When you look at the size and the shape of your business, particularly in Wealth Management, what are the key areas you can see to grow above market? Is it market share gains in Germany? Is it potentially inorganic in, for example, Belgium and France or any other area that you see?

Thank you. I will take your question on M&A and Wealth Management, and Ferdi will comment on volume growth later on. On M&A, right now with the acquisition of HAL and Bethmann that we already had in Germany, we have a very strong position of #3 in the Wealth Management market in Germany. And so our goal is to thrive.

Our goal is to extract the synergies that will derive from this acquisition. This is why following the legal merger that we achieved for HAL mid-June, we are now fully focused on the IT technical integration that will happen at Q4. Right now, as I said, our energy is focused on making our recent acquisitions, be it HAL or NIBC to be profitable.

We do believe, and that's what we shared at our CMD and that the ambition we have of achieving overall EUR 335 billion of client assets by '28 will be achieved beyond the acquisitions that we have already announced through organic growth. And so this is why we focus very much on commercial momentum and productivity with our clients. This is about leveraging our own franchise, which is very strong. On the volumes?

Yes. Maybe on the liability side, indeed, it's very strong. If you look at client funding, it was underlying, if you correct for the short-term custody inflow in Q1, it was plus EUR 5.3 billion. So on an annualized basis, you see an underlying growth of 11%. Yes, indeed, part of it is seasonal. You normally see the holiday allowances in personal and business banking.

And last year, you always see increased spending over the summer period, but also part of it might be more structural because savings tend to increase when uncertainty increases, for example, due to the geopolitical developments. But also what you see here, while the market -- deposit market in the Netherlands grew the first half of the year with 6% to 7%, our market share slightly increased.

So also here, we have a market share between 14% and 15%. So even a slight increase on a very healthy growth market in the Netherlands, and that's the main underlying driver of our healthy deposit growth.

And if I may, just a very quick follow-up. The system is growing 6% to 7%, you're gaining market share. Is it time to relook at the 3% to 4% underlying assumption?

Maybe it's too early to start looking at that. As Marguerite said already, we're comfortable with the target we set for 2028. And also here, as I said before, let's also look how much is structural or not. And it's always depending with increasing rates and increasing margins, what the competition element will do. So for now, we're very comfortable with the targets we set during the CMD.

The next question comes from Anke Reingen from RBC.

The first is just on other commercial NII. It's running above your previous guidance. Is there -- is this just a more volatile Clearing result? Or is there any structural reason that we can extrapolate from the '26 guidance ex the NIBC impact to the next years?

And just on liability margins, the 119 basis points, do you think that's sustainable? Or is there anything in the competitive dynamic in the Netherlands?

I think Rabo raised some of the rates that could potentially put some pressure on it? And then sorry, secondly, on cost, the guidance you put the comment out it's subject to the CLA agreement. Can you just confirm that there isn't a risk -- you don't expect the risk to your cost guidance from depending on the outcome from the CLA?

Thank you very much. I will take your question on cost and Ferdi will answer on other commercial NII, but also liability margins. Yes, we refer to our collective labor agreement because, as you know, we started the negotiations in June, and they will resume mid-September.

In the assumption we shared at our CMD, we said that in our financial plan, we had taken a hypothesis for inflation of 2%. And I believe we also gave the guidance, I mean, the information at Q1 that 1 percentage point above that would amount to between EUR 30 million and EUR 30 million full year. So I think you have from that, the necessary ingredients. We also shared at the time of our CMD that anything that would go beyond the equities we had taken in our financial plan would also be compensated by additional savings.

Yes. On other commercial NII, the quarter was very good at plus 30%. And the biggest driver here is higher financing needs from our clearing clients. If you look at our overall guidance, EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million we provided was also based on a clearing NII, if you look at full year '25 of just above EUR 300 million. So it's elevated levels there.

Also in here are the interest-related fees. So those are the underwriting fees, which are amortized. And as said by Marguerite, for the coming quarter or maybe quarters, we have added NIBC to our overall guidance on other commercial NII that adds up to slightly below the EUR 150 million. So underlying in the guidance, you would see around EUR 450 million, what we expect for other commercial NII for the year.

Then if you look at the liability margin, yes, 5 basis points increase. So that really reflects disciplined deposit pricing. And you start to see the prolonged tailwind of our replicating portfolio, which started already end of last year. So going forward, we expect to benefit from the structure of the replicating portfolio as the higher-yielding swaps will be rolled in more gradually.

But always, you are dependent on competition potentially impacting volumes and also potential migration shift. So for now, we're comfortable. We expect the liability margin trajectory to continue as we earlier guided on during our CMD.

The next question comes from Matthew Clark from Mediobanca.

Just a couple of follow-up questions on the other commercial NII and the liability margin, please. So on the other commercial NII that is implicit, I think, in your new guidance that it drops back down to the former run rate. So if you could just confirm that? And then also, would you -- or should we expect the same to happen to the strong Clearing-related fees that you talk about this quarter?

And then secondly, on the liability margin trajectory, the chart on Slide 10, I'm struggling to understand, it looks -- when I compare that to the same chart last quarter, it looks like there's around about a 10 basis point uplift to the April curve scenario. So I'm just a bit unclear why the trajectory has improved for that, if we look at that static April curve scenario between last quarter's outlook and this quarter's outlook.

Okay. Ferdi on other commercial NII.

Yes, on other commercial NII, will it move back? We said other commercial NII of the guidance we provided at CMD EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million. As I've said, clearing is elevated levels. So that is the biggest explanation why we expect it to be around EUR 450 million for the full year, if you look at the underlying guidance of EUR 600 million. So that is the underlying explanation. If you then look at the chart, what will happen on Slide 10 to the liability margin.

Indeed, looking forward on the current forward rates, we expect, for example, in 2028, the liability margin roughly 10 basis points higher than the chart we presented during the CMD. But you should take into account that rates are volatile and potential impact of migration or mix shift once the margin increases further.

So overall, the underlying assumption, as we said before, on the replicating portfolio, we expect a full pass-through on interest paid deposits. And we expect the full benefit from the current accounts, which is around EUR 50 billion. So that is the explanation why on current forward curves, 2028, the expected under this assumption, liability margin will be roughly 10 basis points higher compared to CMD and November last year.

Sorry, just to come back to that. My question is specifically on the April curve. So you presented last quarter projections based on the April curve. And then you've shown a reconciliation this quarter also on an April curve, and it's meaningfully higher now than you're expecting last quarter based on that April curve scenario. And so it's the comparison with last quarter rather than the CMD, which I struggle to understand why you think your projection is the same.

Yes, yes. Sorry, the starting point, Matthew, I got you now. So sorry for that. It's just the starting point in the assumption we have a full pass-through of interest paid deposits. But so far, I started my answer, we've been very disciplined on pricing, and you have not seen any changes in our deposit pricing over the past period. So that is the explanation of that.

Okay. Thank you.

The coupon is still 1.25% and that is since the 1st of May last year. So that's the explanation. So every quarter when the forward curves improve, the starting point will be higher.

But the starting point is 5 basis points higher this quarter, but the projection is 10 basis points higher. Is that just a fully phased benefit of the higher starting point?

I'm not sure if I get you completely. The 10 basis points is a translation of the sensitivity slide you see at the back of the report, but it's all under the assumption that you see a full pass-through and that the overall mix and overall volume will stay constant. So you really should look at the underlying assumptions for that. And maybe I will ask Investor Relations to provide you some more detail on those underlying assumptions because they're unchanged to what we provided at the CMD.

The next question comes from Juan Pablo Lopez Cobo from Santander.

I got a follow-up, sorry for that. On the liability margin, I would like to ask if your NII guidance, you mentioned that you assume constant margins on interest-bearing deposits. I don't know if you could give us some sensitivity on your guidance if we include higher liability margins as shown in Slide 10.

And my second question is in OpEx regarding the ICS Worldline transaction agreement. Is my understanding that the cost savings were already included in the Capital Markets Day, your target. But if you could give us any color regarding the cost savings and the phasing of those cost savings, if there would be some cost -- higher cost at the beginning and then some cost savings later.

Yes. I will take your question on ICS and Ferdi will follow up on liability margin. Basically, in the agreement we're making right now with Worldline, so okay, a small part, part of it was included in our cost target ambition presented at the CMD for '28. But a fair amount of the synergies, i.e., the full benefit will be only in '29.

And this being said also, there will be restructuring costs that will be taken at the beginning of the period. But also, as we shared at our CMD, you should consider that restructuring cost on average represent for us on a yearly basis, around EUR 100 million. So we are not changing also this EUR 100 million target for '26. Liability margin, Ferdi.

Yes. The liability margin. No. I mean it's an important question, right? So our guidance, to be clear, also for what we said at the CMD that the full year '28 could rise to EUR 7.2 billion. That was based on a liability and also the chart we provided there of around 1.25% and now in the chart, you see 10 basis points higher. So yes, you could simply translate that in plus EUR 250 million. But again, I would say rates are volatile.

You might see migration shifts and competition might increase as well. And the key question is the income of the replicating portfolio is based on constant volumes. But clearly, in the guidance we provide on NII, we take into account our CAGR we provided in terms of deposit growth. That is extremely important for us, and that is also a clear strategy. And also, we take into account what we don't disclose clearly, what our expected price actions are.

The next question comes from Alberto Artoni from Intesa Sanpaolo.

I have 2. Just a follow-up on liability margins and just a clarification on costs. So on the liability side, I just wanted to understand what's your view on the competition for deposits in the Netherlands and particularly given that some fintechs are very aggressive. What do you think how you see the competition playing out in future quarters? And on costs, just a quick clarification. The EUR 5.5 billion guidance for this year, does it include restructuring costs or it excludes the restructuring costs?

Thank you very much. So on cost of EUR 5.5 billion guidance excludes restructuring costs and includes NIBC, just to be fully clear of what's in and what's out, okay? On competition on the savings market in the Netherlands, this is a healthy, competitive, transparent market. So of course, pricing evolves on the basis of interest rate curve, client behaviors, behaviors from competition, whether it comes from incumbents or whether it comes from newcomers and fintechs.

At this stage, and I think this is what we've also demonstrated at Q2, the growth in our liability margin comes also from our strong commercial momentum because we've been able to keep growing our market share, again, in a very healthy market. But of course, we keep watching all developments in the market.

Yes. And maybe just to add to Marguerite, so it's also clear for all the analysts. Yes, our guidance excludes restructuring costs, but it also excludes incidentals, right?

Yes.

An earlier incidental, we had to relief on the pension that's also excluded.

Absolutely.

From the cost guidance.

That was the Q1, if you remember.

The next question comes from Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs International.

I just have 2 questions on capital and costs. So on capital, you said that if over time, your capital ratio remains significantly above your target, i.e., greater than 13.75%, you may consider extraordinary distribution above the 100% level. So to me, it feels like that over time in that sentence is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Is it fair to assume that Q4 results in February are just too early to expect distribution above 100%. That's really something for '27 or 2028 rather than the earlier part of the plan.

And then on cost, secondly, I think I'm still a bit confused on the guidance, just what's included and excluded in the cost guidance versus what you report as underlying expenses. So just to confirm the guidance of EUR 5.5 billion, that's your headline operating expenses and then excluding restructuring. And I think you also just said excluding incidentals, i.e. EUR 82 million in the first half. If we look at H2 versus H1, your guidance implies about a 13% pickup H2 versus H1. There are a couple of things in there.

I guess, first of all, there's obviously the NIBC contribution in the second half, which will lift cost optically. And then there's the levies that happened in the second quarter or second half of last year were about EUR 135 million. And I guess if I adjust for those, I'm sort of getting mid- to high single-digit cost H2 versus H1. Does that sort of sound like a fair reflection of the cost development you're seeing in the business?

Ferdi will go through your cost question. And indeed, there are some, as you rightly pointed out, some costs that we only book at Q4, including, for instance, the banking tax. What -- regarding our distribution policy, indeed, what we said is that if -- and I know you want more details on that, what I mean by over a period of time, our capital position remains significantly above the target, we may consider additional distributions.

Indeed, we still consider that right now and that in the first year of our plan, this is still early stage because this is a 3-year plan. But we are very happy with the progress we're making. And I don't want to speculate about what will be coming next, but we are very confident about our targets and the strength of our capital position.

Yes. And I think, Chris, I agree with your calculation. Just take into account mentioned earlier also the CLA negotiations ongoing, and that will impact the bridge towards the second half of the year. It's a banking tax, it's the inclusion of HAL, you'll also see, if you look, for example, for NIBC, if you look at ICS for the announcement we did in the outsourcing, we expect there to take a provision in Q3 of around EUR 30 million.

If you look year-to-date, restructuring versus pension exit fee more or less balances out. But we take out incidentals, we take out restructuring and take into account, you always see a cost bump in Q4 and you have your regulatory levies then as well.

The next question comes from Farquhar Charles Murray from Autonomous.

Just 2 questions, if I may. Firstly, if I recall from the CMD, those targets did factor in a kind of mix shift towards NHG and a drift lower on LTVs and then the associated decline in asset margins, which I think was around about maybe 15 bps across the full planning period.

How does what you're seeing currently compare to that kind of target trajectory? And do you feel like you're wandering off that? Or is what we're seeing consistent with that? And then secondly, just on the cost side, what is the regulatory cost expectation for full year '26? And for full clarity, is that also in the EUR 5.5 billion?

Ferdi.

Maybe on the regulatory cost, yes, banking tax, you need to start adding NIBC. So I would say tax going forward around EUR 150 million is a rough indication. Then on your second question was specifically on expected migration shift or specifically on mortgage margins?

I think it was more mortgage margins given the share of NHG-backed mortgages in our mix.

Yes. And I think that is it, had the mix shift there. And now the majority of the new production is up until 10 year and also within the NHG guarantee. So that has a larger effect maybe than expected in during the CMD. Number two, we implemented automatic adjustments on the back of LTV. That's also an effect.

We still see an outflow of higher-yielding mortgages that this may be element #3 and maybe element #4, but you know that the derisking of interest-only mortgages, we tightened our criteria for new production up till an absolute cap and the underlying margins of IO was higher than the average.

So I think there are quite a few elements in here, and it's still to be seen what the effect of the removal of the mortgage floor is if part of that will be priced through in the market as well. So there are quite a few elements in here, Farquhar. I can always discuss that in more detail later.

And just to follow-up, the EUR 5.5 billion, does that include the regulatory costs of EUR 150 million that you just suggested?

Yes.

There are no more questions at this time. I will now hand the word back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much all for joining us today, all the more that I expect that some of you are still on vacation, probably dialing in from the vacation. So we're very happy to have you with us. And we do hope that for those who are in Europe, some of you we may be able to enjoy the eclipse tonight. In the meantime, have a great day.

So good morning, everybody. It's my pleasure to be joined now on stage by Marguerite Berard, CEO and Chair of ABN AMRO. Many of you know Marguerite well. She joined ABN as CEO just over a year ago. Since then, I think it's fair to say that she's been busy, most notably pulling together the updated medium-term financial targets and group strategy update, communicated to all of us in September last year.

Prior to joining ABN, Marguerite worked in senior roles at both BNP Paribas and BPCE Group, having started her career in various government roles in France across the Ministry of Finance, the Elysee Palace and Ministry of Labor. So Marguerite, thank you very much for joining us today. And given that aforementioned familiarity with Paris, we're delighted to welcome you back to the conference in Paris next summer.

So this discussion is due to last 35 minutes. It's webcast. So thank you as well, and a warm welcome to everyone joining us on the web.

Let's start maybe with a bit of a macro backdrop. The Dutch economy is resilient, with slightly lower growth, higher inflation, geopolitical uncertainty that's feeding through to energy prices. How are you adapting your strategy to operate in what looks like a more volatile and less benign macro backdrop?

So you're absolutely right. And I think one of the good things about the strategic plan that we presented last November is that it's very much what we call a self-help -- self-help plan, i.e., relying primarily on levers that we have within our own hands, whether it is pursuing profitable growth, but also rightsizing our cost base, steering on capital. So yes, we see -- the Dutch economy is not immune to geopolitical turmoil. We see its impact which, at this stage, is moderate on our growth forecast for the Netherlands.

The Netherlands is also a country that has been steadily, I would say, outperform. It's a great ZIP code, outperforming EU macro indicators steadily since the COVID crisis. Last year, growth was 1.9% versus on average, 1.5% in the EU. Debt-to-GDP ratio, 44%, AAA country, very strong labor market, unemployment at 4% and so on. So this is a very healthy economy. But as I said, the important thing is that when you look at our strategic plan, the main levers we had, I would say, conservative assumptions regarding the macroeconomic environment and the main levers are in our own hands.

Yes, exactly. Your forecast themselves point up slow GDP growth, as you mentioned, moderating housing activity, fewer transactions. So how should we think about that environment in terms of balance sheet growth versus profitability?

So we don't pursue balance sheet growth for itself, what we pursue is profitable growth. This is really for us the name of the game. If you look at the various compartments of our balance sheet. We see, for instance, you mentioned mortgages. We -- even though the mortgage market is slowing down, we nevertheless see healthy mortgage prices because the Dutch market is a tight market with not enough supply. And so if you look year-on-year, the growth has been on our balance sheet, 5% on mortgages.

Same applies when you look at corporate loans, year-on-year growth of 3% over the past quarters. Again, we only pursue opportunities that are profitable, i.e., capital savings. This is really the core of our strategic plan. And if I look also on the liability side, I mean, deposit growth has also been very meaningful this past quarter, and we expect them to continue to grow in the coming year. So all in all, I would say a fairly healthy environment. But again, for us, the name of the game is profitable growth. So we're not trying to grow the balance sheet for its own sake.

Okay. So if I move into the sort of P&L line items, and you mentioned a couple of the drivers there. But if we start with NII, that's clearly being driven at the moment by the liability side of the business, both as you mentioned, in terms of deposit volume growth, there's also the hedge tailwinds kicking in. At the same time, there is, again, you mentioned that persistent margin pressure in the mortgage business. How should we expect those opposing trends to develop over the coming quarters and years, especially in the context of what we see in rates?

Yes. So I do recognize these trends. On mortgages, there is definitely margin pressure. You had it in our strategic plan as well. One of the reasons to -- and that's also a specificity of the Dutch mortgage market is that there is scheme in the Netherlands called NHG, this is state guarantee scheme for certain categories of mortgage buyers, where there -- yes, the margin are thinner. But at the same time, and that's very positive in terms of profitability, the capital that we need for this type of mortgages is also smaller. So this is actually quite accretive.

I also fully recognize the trend you described on the liability side. We see not only volume growth but also tailwinds in the forward curve. The impact was moderate in Q1. In our -- at our Q1 result, we provided a sensitivity analysis, not an update of our guidance, but the sensitivity analysis of what this could contribute if we were to apply the current forward curve to our model and the potential upside on top of our EUR 6.4 billion commercial NII guidance, excluding NIBC, was an additional EUR 100 million. So yes, we see these trends right now in that situation. And when it comes to NII, we will also be able to narrow down our guidance at Q2.

And can we talk a little bit again on NII about competition? You assume 100% pass-through on any rate hikes in terms of what you pay on your savings products. I guess the simple question, is the Dutch market really that competitive or is there a layer of conservatism built into that as well?

The answer is both. Okay, first, yes, the Dutch market is competitive. And at the same time, I do fully recognize that the assumption we make when we present replicating portfolio of a 100% pass-through is conservative because we also know that the reality depends on other factors such as competitive trends, client behaviors. So it is a conservative assumption.

One of the reasons we have this assumption in place is because if we were to be more specific, we feel it would also be giving, I would say, commercial indications on when we at ABN AMRO would think we want to make certain commercial moves. And we don't want to give this indication because it's -- then we don't speak only to you, but we also speak to our peers in the market. So that wouldn't be very wise.

At the same time, so I agree with this is a 100% assumption that we have of pass-through is conservative. There is another assumption that we make is that -- and this one plays in the other direction, it is that we don't have any hypothesis of migration effect. And you also know that when interest-bearing accounts are going up, then you can also have a migration from current accounts that are not interest bearing to this better remunerated accounts. And so we have no assumptions on that when you look at our replicating portfolio, and that plays in the other direction.

So I agree that it is a fairly simple model that we provide, at the same time, I think if you look on our website, you also have a fairly good historical data on how things have played in the past and you can make your own assumption.

Are you seeing that migration already? Or is that sort of hypothetical as to what might happen when rates...

No. It is just something that historically we've observed. Again, it's not one-to-one because again, client behavior depends on do clients bother for 25 basis points, probably not. They also take into account, is this going to be lasting or not lasting. They also take into account prudency if they feel the environment is volatile. So there are many things that play a role. I'm just saying there is no assumption on migration when we -- when you see our replicating portfolio.

Understood. And then my last question on NII for 2028, in fact. We can all work through the replicating income maths, et cetera, try and take into account those ideas you just gave us. But is there anything more fundamental we should be thinking about on that 3-year view, perhaps with the onboarding of NIBC, there's some funding synergies there, or there's improvements in mortgage market share? How does the shape of NII growth, I guess, change over the coming years as well between volume and margin?

So we do have -- as we shared, we definitely have, when it comes to NII, a more liability-led growth. This is really not only on the back of volume, but again on the back of margin, much more than on the SSI, that's one. NIBC per se is not going to change anything to this really equation because with NIBC will come additional mortgages and additional deposits. So it's not really changing the shape. And when it comes to funding synergies, when NIBC will be joining our group, there indeed may be some. We see then kicking in later than the end of our plan post '28. So this is not something we take into account in the years until the end of the plan '28.

Yes. Okay. And then maybe let's switch gears over to fees. They were very strong in the first quarter, driven by clearing by global markets. So how much of that growth that we saw in Q1 was cyclical versus structural?

I think you had both in Q1, i.e., yes, you're on the back of a strong volatility in the market, you definitely had a very strong quarter for clearing, for example, but also for global market activities. And yes, we registered a record level of fees in Q1, more than EUR 600 million. But I think it would also be unfair to assume that everything is just cyclical because this growth also came on the back of -- for clearing, for example, additional clients that we have onboarded and additional resources that we have provided to this business because you know that in our 5 long-term ambitions, sustaining or clearing business growth over time is crucial.

So part of it is structural. And it's not only about clearing because the growth in fees, you observe it also in the different parts of the bank, it's true in markets, it is true in wealth management. It's also true in PNBB, our retail division. So you saw all the parts of the bank contributing, so yes, you may have quarter after quarter, some volatility, but the underlying trend is positive, which is important because developing of fees, it is indeed a crucial part of our strategy.

So let's talk about developing of fees. Can you walk us a little bit through or talk us through the wealth business, especially post the acquisition of HAL? Where do you want to take that business? What's working well? What's maybe a bit more challenging? And I guess, how are you faring in terms of converting cash into advisory and discretionary management?

Absolutely. So we do have in our 5 long-term ambitions, the ambition to make our wealth business, a top 5 players in Europe. It's a long-term ambition. The strict ambition we gave ourselves end of 2028 was EUR 335 billion of client assets. How the acquisition of HAL plays, of course, a key role in this strategy? That gives us a very strong #3 position in the German market. This integration is going well. We will go through the legal merger mid-June, and then the IT merger will happen in the fall. So this is all going according to plan.

I'm also happy in wealth with the commercial and commercial intensity momentum that we see. I also like very much the way our businesses, corporate banking and wealth management play together. We see hundreds of leads coming from CB to wealth since the beginning of the year. And of course, we need to keep transforming them. But this is one of the sweet spots of ABN AMRO being able to serve clients, family-owned companies, privately owned companies on the corporate side and on the private side as well.

So I think this is playing nicely. Conversion from first deposits, we may have been attracting from targeted campaigns such as the one we did last year into more valuable assets and DPM is going well. And of course, over -- you also have part of cyclical effects based on market performance, but also clients sometimes taking more time to make certain decisions given the more volatile environment. So we also observe that, but again, I think the underlying trend is going in the right direction.

And then sticking on the fee side, but think about it more from the corporate bank perspective. I guess how underpenetrated would you say you are in regards to fee revenues declines? If you look at average fees per customer or fee to RWA or fees to loans, is there scope for you to do more in monetizing those corporate relations as it pertains to fees?

Yes, yes. This is when we looked, preparing our strategic plan, at our situation, we found that on our corporate bank, we were a bit heavy dependent on, I would say, lending heavy on the balance sheet and that this was something we could keep improving. So this is something we do through various levers. We have -- we go through all our client portfolio, see those where we think we are below hurdle, have conversations with our clients in terms of how can we improve cross-sell, make sure that you see the entire house going from hey, are there things we can do with you from using global markets, hedging, transaction banking, wealth and so on.

And make sure we have these conversations and clients understand perfectly these conversations. If sometimes, we think that there are situations where we cannot improve the profitability of the relationship, then we have also a disciplined client selection framework so we can exit clients. So this is what I call -- and we always do it very carefully. This is what I call a solution of last resort because this is not our purpose. But we have -- we're very disciplined in the way we allocate our capital, and this is why we're very confident in the target we have for corporate bank to reach 21% ROE by the end of the plan, yes.

Perfect. Okay. Now let's turn to costs. That's perhaps the most unique element of the ABN investment case. It's nearly 200 days since you unveiled your new targets at the Capital Markets Day, you've already delivered 40% or so of your FTE reduction target, EUR 220 million of cost savings. So what's driven that -- the faster-than-expected execution so far?

So we've made a strong start, which is good. We've been -- I think we achieved it through, I would say, a strong discipline. Strong discipline on new hirings, strong discipline on, I would say, external parties we were working with, not always necessary and so on. So I would say this is really about a tighter discipline on controlling than what we used to -- we probably used to have, and it's paying off.

You could -- it's not a linear process, and I would like -- and we shared that also in our Q1 presentation. We also said, yes, we've reached 40% of the target we had in terms of FTE reduction, i.e., 5,200 by the end of '28, which represents a 20% decrease in our workforce over the course of the plan. It's not a linear process. But the good thing is that we know exactly how we are going to achieve this because behind each of our cost initiatives, there is a well-grounded business case that we agreed upon. We call it signed in blood and audited.

And we monitor it literally on a weekly basis so that we know where we stand. So not a linear process, and I think that's important for you to keep in mind. But at the same time, grounded in a way that gives me not only confidence in '28 target, but also allowed us to improve our cost guidance by EUR 100 million for 2026 when we communicated at Q1.

Yes. You've also -- within the cost narrative, you've also talked about AI adoption being there at 85% of your employees and already seeing tangible productivity improvements. How are you seeing the AI opportunity here today? And I guess several of your peers have talked about the sort of meaningful differences in how they see the AI opportunity set versus 3, 4, 5, 6 months ago. So I guess a simple question would be, if you were to redo the CMD tomorrow, would you see -- would you think about AI differently now versus when you spoke to us in September?

Probably, because indeed, we see things moving very fast. So it would probably have played even a bigger role in our strategic plan narrative when we presented it last November, than if we were to do it again now. I think it's -- with every major technological revolution, and this one is probably the most important we will experience in our lifetime. There is what's called Amara's Law, i.e., we tend to overestimate the impact of the technology in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.

And I think that we are very much at this moment with AI. The way to solve the paradox, and that's also what the way you see who's going to win this game is speed of adoption. For me, the crucial thing is how fast we are able to diffuse this technology within the company. And the way we do it, that's very important is, I don't believe in enforcing it on people because AI is intimidating. It's called -- they call it the fourth narcissistic wound that was inflicted on humanity after -- the first one was Copernicus when he found out that the earth was not the center of the universe.

The second one was with Darwin when we had to accept that we were just another kind of animal. The third one was COVID and having to accept that our ego was not actually fully in control of our mind. So this is a fourth one with AI is conversation, creativity intelligence, something that is specifically human or not. And it is intimidating. And we experienced it in the bank with colleagues asking, hey, is not only how do I use this, but is this going to replace me, will I still have a role.

So the way we work on it is not only to address these questions that are very valid questions openly in the bank, and this is also, I think, a great reflection on what I like about Dutch culture that people are able -- we have these three council meetings with the Works Council, the Supervisory Board, the Executive Board coming together and working very openly and constructively on this topic, AI being one of them. But also, we make sure that we diffuse AI at scale.

So for instance, we made widely available within the bank, all AI tools such as Copilot licenses so that people can experiment and learn organically because I think this is really how you speed up diffusion. And then what's really important also is to do things that I call at scale, i.e., you don't want to have the additional use case where we're just going to do, hey, one more press release on how glamorous this is going to look. You want to do things very methodically. So we've developed 6 market types going from conversational agents to, for instance, intelligent document processing. And we use them as building blocks a little bit like Lego blocks that we assemble so that we diffuse them throughout the company.

So right now, Anna, our AI conversational agent, handles more than 150,000 calls per month. Lenny, our lending agent, helps our colleagues prepare for their credit memo for the credit committees and so on. So this is how you how you play it, and it also requires, and that's very important, a very, I call it, good plumbing, i.e., good IT, good process, review of end-to-end process because AI on the bad process, it's still a bad process, good data. This is where you get the full benefit of it.

So speed of diffusion and how methodically you do it, is absolutely crucial in being able to crystallize, materialize the productivity gains you want.

I definitely didn't think we'd have Copernicus, Sigmund Freud and Charles Darwin turn up in this event.

In one sentence, yes.

Okay, so we come to Capital. Okay. So on cost. Final question on cost. If you look forward to '27-2028, do you see ABN AMRO at that point as a structurally leaner bank or one that's effectively been great at recycling those efficiency gains into higher growth investments? And I guess how should investors judge that you've managed to achieve the right balance between those two?

We're going to be both. We're going to do both. And because one is feeding the other, i.e., we will be structurally a leaner bank because we have a fairly simple model and geographic footprint that allows us actually to be leaner, which is great because these are things we are already doing like, for instance, we have today subsidiaries for mortgages and subsidiaries for asset-based finance. We are integrating them in the main bank to simplify. So we will be leaner.

We keep very systematically, this is what we call our, IT value case, decommissioning applications that are not necessary to simplify our IT landscape. And this also allows us, and that we shared at the CMD to have a fairly, I would say, constant investment budget, but where the share of what we spend on maintenance or regulatory programs is decreasing compared to share of what we can invest in commercial opportunities or also innovation.

And so we see that as an opportunity to fuel our growth. So both, but we're very disciplined on our cost yet because we see the upside as well. We're not fully optimized yet by far.

So let's pivot to ROE, and then I want to touch on capital and distribution quickly. So targeting greater than 12% in 2028. The first quarter this year did 11%. So I guess what happens through the rest of this year in terms of how linear and predictable the ROE path should be on the go forward?

Okay. So what you have to see in Q1 yes, it was a good Q1. We're very happy with the good start, the good momentum we see in this first quarter. But you also have to bear in mind that there are, for instance, certain costs that will only kick in, in Q4 like the banking tax, just to name one. So you need to average it through the cycle. But yes, directionally, we are going in the good direction. But it is -- I often say this is a marathon. We do it quarter after quarter. I think what we want to be is predictable. We commit to things that we know how we're going to deliver.

And I think that makes us also attractive and appealing because we say what we're doing, and we know how we're going to reach it. But it is a disciplined play, and this is still very early in the strategic plan.

Okay. So one on capital, one on distribution, and then I'll go to audience quickly. So on capital, you've made significant progress so far on capital optimization, headroom creation, et cetera. How much further upside is there on a capital efficiency alone sort of in isolation?

So for instance, if you look at our corporate bank, which was an area where we put a lot of efforts because that's where it was primarily needed. I would say we've done half of what we wanted to do. So this is good. We will keep freeing up capital. We will also mobilize active portfolio management, not only through SRTs, but potentially other solutions, insurance solution and various forms of partnerships that can be there. So there is -- we're in a good spot and more to come.

Okay. Lastly for me then on distribution. So you've clearly reiterated the distribution policy of up to 100% of net profit. But given the large excess capital position, the limited RWA growth, as you mentioned earlier, the capital optimization levels we talked about opportunities we talked about. What are the key conditions for, I guess, going beyond that baseline? And how supportive is the regulator in terms of you asking to distribute more than 100%? Could there be a more innovative solution like a directed buyback or anything with a state like we saw happen in Ireland?

So many questions in one.

We've got about 3 minutes.

Okay. I'll be fast. So what we -- we're still early in the plan. Again, happy with where we stand today. This is much better position to start like that than the other way around. We committed at our CMD of -- for distribution policy of up to 100%, at least EUR 7.5 billion. So that's very clear. If over time, but again, we are still early in the plan, we would be consistently above -- significantly above our CET1 target. Then, of course, this will be part of our assessment. Our assessment, we made very clear that we will do it at Q4. This is when our capital assessment is happening.

And to your point, as for share buyback, but also any inordinary distribution that would go to beyond 100% distribution would be, of course, subject to ECB regulatory approval.

Okay. Very clear. Any questions in the room for Marguerite. No? We're good? Could you wait for the mic because we're on the webcast, so then they can hear your question?

You're obviously a market leader in wealth management in the Netherlands. We are in Switzerland. So it's a relevant market. Now you are big, you are a market leader, you have now the state backing a little bit. So you have actually a lot of clients who might be actually very relevant for the future but your strategy in wealth management seems to be more focused on kind of standardization, the ETF blocks and less on customization or solution, what we have heard, for example, for the -- from the UBS colleagues.

So do you see some chances where you as a market leader in the Netherlands, maybe then later Benelux, would actually take the wealth, ultra wealth a little bit more seriously because you are recognized as a bank and you have these accounts already, but they are not being serviced as a EUR 60 million or EUR 100 million account, they are being serviced like retail?

I think that would be slightly excessive. I would not fully agree with your last comment. What -- we are indeed undisputed market leader in wealth in the Netherlands. I feel in terms of product offering that we are actually innovative, and we operate in a very open architecture scheme. So I can tell you that our clients actually benefit from the full scope of what can be offered because this is part of -- we operate and this is actually one of the upsides that we also have in the plan.

We operate way more in open architecture than most of our peers. And I see also the potential, as these are things we're doing in internalizing some of the product offering, having global markets, clearing and wealth working together for certain projects that we right now buy outside and provide our client rather than do in-house. So this is one also of the upside we have in terms of revenues.

But in terms of product offering, I think we -- given this open architecture approach we have, we're quite innovative. What's true is that, we are often for wealth clients, also their household account. That's true. So this is also why you sometimes observe some seasonality with us because they also use us to pay their taxes from their accounts with us and so on because we are their primary bank. So we are the household bank, but not only.

Okay. Any more? No, we're good. Okay, Marguerite, thank you so much.

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

Welcome to ABN AMRO's Q1 2026 Analyst and Investor Call. Please note this call is being recorded.

[Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the call over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to ABN AMRO's Q1 '26 results presentation. I'm joined today by our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager; and our CRO, Serena Fioravanti. I will cover the key messages, our progress and strategy and our financial results for the quarter. And after the presentation, we will open the line for your questions.

Let me begin with the key highlights of the first quarter on Slide 2. This first quarter was a strong start to the year with net profit increasing 12% compared to the same period last year. We booked a net profit of EUR 693 million, leading to a return on equity of 10.7%. There was solid growth in mortgages and corporate loans during this quarter.

Growing deposit volumes were the main contributor to higher commercial net interest income. Fee income reached a record level, driven by strong gearing performance resulting from high market volatility. Underlying costs declined further. We are, therefore, lowering our full year '26 cost guidance to around EUR 5.5 billion. Credit quality remains solid, with limited net impairments and a cost of risk of 9 basis points despite increased geopolitical uncertainty. Our capital division remained strong with a CET1 ratio of 15.5%.

Let me now go into more details on how we are delivering on our strategic targets. For our core projects, mortgages and client deposits, we are on track to reach our '28 ambition. For client deposit growth, we stand at 46% of our '28 ambition and including the intended acquisition of NIBC at around 63%. With EUR 2 billion of mortgage growth this quarter, 30% of our growth ambition has been realized. And again, including NIBC, this rises to around 73%. We are making sustainability more accessible and financially attractive for homeowners. Now mortgage interest rates can be linked to the homes' energy level. This rewards appliance for making their homes more sustainable.

Now turning to client assets. This quarter was impacted by market volatility and seasonal effects. However, the conversion of cash and [ client ] deposits into mandated and advisory products continued. We expanded our investment offering with the launch of regulated crypto investment projects. This gives clients transparent access to this new asset class.

In Corporate Banking, profitability benefited from record high clearing fees and also strong fees for Global Markets. This came alongside growth in our transition financing, including defense and renewable energy.

Now on the next slide, turning to our cost ambition. By simplifying all bank and reducing run rate costs, we are delivering on our promise to rightsize our cost base. Over the first quarter, FTEs again decreased by more than 500 bps mainly more external staff. Total FTE registration since the end of '24 now represents around 40% of our '28 targets. In terms of cost savings, a further EUR 60 million was achieved in Q1. This brings cumulative savings to around EUR 220 million, out of a total of EUR 900 million mainly from increased efficiency and ongoing IT streamlining.

Alongside call discipline, we are also improving productivity by embedding technology in AI more deeply in our daily work. We have moved faster than expected achieving cost reduction, so I expect the pace to slow down somewhat from here.

This quarter, we also made further progress in capital optimization. Now turning on to the next page. Optimizing capital allocation is a strategic priority. Corporate banking has clear reduction targets of both portfolio optimization and RWA optimization. Together, these targets a EUR 10 billion reduction, and this quarter, we realized an additional [ reduction ] of EUR 1 billion. We have, therefore, now realized around 50% of our targets, mainly through RWA organizations. This reflects the partial reintroduction of the SME support factor, improvements to date quality and collateral sourcing.

Portfolio optimization are more gradual and includes the closure of asset-based finance international. This is proceeding as planned. We have identified EUR 8 billion of RWA for active portfolio management and around 20% has been securitized by the SRT transaction we executed in Q4. All these RWA reductions strengthen our capital position and enable us to invest selectively in profitable growth opportunities. We are on track with our commitment to lower the share of allocated RWAs in Corporate Banking which currently amounts to 51%.

Now turning to the Dutch economy. The Dutch economy remains resilient despite the current headwinds. Q1 GDP growth slowed to 1% quarter-on-quarter. Over the full year, GDP growth is forecast at 1.5%, slightly downgraded due to the Iran conflict and energy shock while inflation has been revised up to 2.8%.

On housing, after 2 years of 8% price growth we expect prices to moderate to plus 3% in '26 and plus 4% in '27. Transaction volumes eased a 10-year record of around 239,000 in '25 but are expected to decline by 6% in '26 and 4% in '27 amid heightened uncertainties and also limited supply of new homes. Despite this, the economy faces a turbulence from a position of strength in household savings, low debt ratios and a steel tight labor market are providing meaningful buffers.

I'm turning now to our financial performance for the first quarter, starting with client deposits on Slide 8. The quarterly movement in client deposits should be seen in the context of some seasonal effects. Around year end, clients tend to hold more cash, while in Q1, we typically see higher tax payments. In this context, broadly flat client deposits in Q1 or a solid outcome. Over the past quarters, we have seen a continuous growth in deposits in line with our strategy conditions.

Now turning to client assets. I already mentioned that volatile markets during March led to lower asset values. Overall, we continue to see that our commercial efforts are leading to conversion to mandated and advisory project, keeping our progress on track.

Now turning to interest income. This quarter, commercial NII improved by EUR 36 million. Mortgage volumes continued to increase, with growth increasingly coming from government-backed mortgages. These mortgages are lower margins, and this explains a basis point decrease in asset margin. Average liability volumes were higher, reflecting continued underlying growth in deposit volumes. This was the main driver for the growth in commercial NII. The [ liabilities ] margin was broadly unchanged, reflecting the stable replicating yield. Other commercial NII also increased in Q1 among others, from higher financing demand for Clearing clients.

Now turning to the interest rate outlook and what this means for us. Compared with last quarter, forward rates have risen sharply in reaction to geopolitical events. Current forward rates implies a further tailwind to liability margin. This creates upside to our full year commercial NII guidance. As is forward rates, this could be close to EUR 100 million additional interest income over '26. However, we have decided to keep our guidance unchanged for now. It is difficult to foresee indeed if these rates would assist given the unpredictable nature of current events. We expect we can narrow down our NII guidance with our Q2 results.

And now turning to our fee income. Fee income increased 6% quarter-on-quarter, showing growth in scalable capital-efficient business revenues. In Personal and Business Banking, we introduced new pricing for client accounts at the beginning of the year, and this led to higher fees. The negative market performance in Q1 affected fees in Wealth Management. By contrast the higher market volatility led to strong results for clearing due to increased trading volumes.

Also, our global market activities had a good first quarter. On other operating income, it has been relatively low in the past 3 quarters. One reason has been the lower equity participation resource. Market consensus are unfavorable for both revaluation and exits. Also, ALM/Treasury results have been lower than seen on average over the past 3 years.

I'm now turning to our costs. Given stronger-than-expected delivery and cost reductions, we have decided to lower our cost guidance of '26 by around EUR 100 million to approximately EUR 5.5 billion. Our discipline essential our strategy. Compared to Q1 last year, we had a more or less similar cost level. However, when we exclude HAL expenses are, in fact, down 6%, reflecting the impact of lower FTEs and lower IT costs.

We are on track with integration of HAL, and this accounts for the largest part of the EUR 63 million integration costs we booked this quarter. For the remainder of the year, restructuring costs will be limited. We are also starting discussions on the renewal of the current collective labor agreement, which will run until the end of June, assuming we reach an agreement, this may impact personnel expenses starting Q3.

Turning to credit quality. Credit quality remains solid with a Stage 3 ratio of 2.1% and a coverage ratio of 15.8%. Impairments in Q1 were broadly at the same level as Q4 while individual impairments declined versus last quarter. Model impairment in contrast were higher this quarter. This reflects updated macro scenarios and a significant increase of our negative scenario weighting from 30% to 55%.

The negative scenario includes longer disruption to energy supplies lead to the war in the Middle East. With these changes, we believe we have taken into account both first and potential second order effects. We have not made additions to the management overlay, which remained stable at around EUR 75 million. We continue to actively monitor potential impacts from macroeconomic and geopolitical developments on our loan portfolios.

So far, we do not expect a material impact. This reflects the strong quality of our loan book, prudent risk management and strong collateral across all our portfolios. This is also reflected in our very limited private credit exposure of around EUR 200 million.

Turning now to our capital position. Our proforma CET1 ratio was slightly to 15.5%. This excludes the potential impact of around 70 to 80 basis points from the acquisition of NIBC which we expect to book with Q3. RWA increased by EUR 1.2 billion in Q1, largely related to business development in Corporate Banking, partly offset by that quality improvements. Other RWA stock gearing increased from a reversal of the seasonally lower RWAs in Q4 and the onboarding of new clients.

The Dutch Central Bank has decided not to continue to mortgage floor beyond the current period ending at the end of November, depending on market and volume development, this could lead to a reduction of around EUR 7 billion in our mortgage RWAs. In terms of capital [ allocations ], let me start by saying we are committed to returning at least EUR 7.5 billion of capital by paying out up to 100% of net profit over the year of '26 to '28.

These represent substantial commitments. The removal of the DNB mortgage floor is an upside to our plan, and all [indiscernible] benefits our capital position. We said at the CMD that over a period of time, our capital position remains significantly above our target, and we are delivering on our strategic computations, we may consider additional distributions.

While we are progressing well on our strategic delivery, we are still at the beginning of our strategic period. So before considering additional distributions we need to see capital consistently exceeding our target and further deliver on our strategic ambitions.

Let me close with the key takeaways for the quarter. Today's results show that we are delivering on what we said we would do. In Q1, we made strong progress across our strategic priorities, we're profitably rightsize our cost base and optimize capital allocation. We showed profitable growth, adding a further EUR 2 billion to our mortgage portfolio. We also delivered record high fees.

We are keeping our NII guidance unchanged while acknowledging the financial upside from current interest rates. We also maintained strong cost discipline and have lowered our cost guidance for full year 100 million to around EUR 5.5 billion. And with CET1 ratio of 15.5%, we remain well positioned to invest in our strategy, support our clients while returning capital to our shareholders.

In a nutshell, we are focused, we are committed, and we continue to deliver on our promises. I thank you very much for your attention, and we will now open the line for your questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The next question comes from Giulia Aurora Miotto from Morgan Stanley.

I have 2. The first one on the improved cost guidance at EUR 5.5 billion. It's nice to see an improvement, but it still seems quite conservative to me. And I appreciate that Q4 is normally seasonally higher. I appreciate the CLA but I would think it could be almost EUR 100 million lower than what you're guiding to.

So can you help us think about potential upside or if I'm missing something on the cost guide? And then secondly, this mortgage floor, so 70 more bps, basically, that is coming your way by year-end, plus the over delivery so far. How should we think about the potential for perhaps an interim excess capital distribution. And I hear you, Marguerite, you said that you want to show a bit more delivery or at the beginning of the journey. So in terms of time so we think about maybe Q3? Is that a realistic timing for ABN to raise a request to the ECB for an excess capital distribution? Or what's the best way to think about this?

Thank you very much, Giulia, for your questions. In terms of our closed guidance improvement, indeed, we are pleased with our pace. We are pleased with our discipline and commitment to delivery. This is what allows us to improve even though we are early in the journey to improve our cost guidance by EUR 100 million to EUR 5.5 billion. This is a guidance we're very comfortable with.

I also pointed out that, indeed, there may be things to be considered like pointing out to our CLA negotiations happening in June. So we -- the other rule, we commit to things we are in the capacity of delivering ambitious targets, but realistic as well so that we can be predictable.

When it comes to the DNB mortgage floor and its consequences, we shared the figures with you. As you know, we always assess our capital position at Q4, and there will be no change in that respect. So we will be assessing our position at Q4. And as I shared, we are happy with the way we started the journey but this is the beginning of the journey. This is a marathon. So we do it quarter after quarter.

The next question comes from Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Yes, and well done really on the OpEx development. So 2 questions on my side. The first one will be again on OpEx. So you've achieved 40% of the planned FTE reduction already in Q1. I think you announced the CMD just 4 months ago. So clearly, the speed of execution is very strong. Are you already seeking to maybe update the plan at some point?

And I was also wondering if the in the context of renegotiating the collective labor agreement in H2, whether we should expect maybe a bit of an update at some point during the year around the FTE reduction plan for the long term. So that's the question number one. Number 2 is, actually, yes, maybe on liability margin, things are looking better already. And conceptually, do you think your EUR 7.2 billion NII number is still the right one at the current curve?

On cost, let me reiterate what we shared at our CMD. In terms of FTE trajectory, we committed to the total reduction 5, 200 by '28. Indeed, where we look at where we stand now, we are pleased with the pace we've been achieving 40% of your overall target. I also shared that we do expect this pace to moderate in the coming quarters, but we like the fact that we started with a strong start.

It is the beginning of a strategic plan. Don't get me wrong, whenever we can do better, we will do better. It is still early in the plan. And right now, we are very much focused on delivering on what we already committed. On the liability margin, do you want to take that?

Yes, maybe more in general, as you asked at Benoit, we have very strong confidence in our NII guidance -- commercial NII guidance for this year of EUR 6.4 billion. But it's also, as Marguerite said during the presentation and current volatile market environment, we expect to have better visibility at the year and also in the disclosures in the presentation, we recognized the forward curve has improved.

Hence, the guidance can be seen as somewhat conservative if April curves were to materialize. So that implies upside potential to our guidance of roughly EUR 100 million. But you should not look at isolation at this, right, with higher margin deposit competition, what we see already of smaller players might increase and also higher interest credit curves might be the consequence of higher inflation which might feed into less growth or higher loan losses.

So yes, we're very confident, but I reiterate what Marguerite says earlier, midyear is a better moment to reflect on our guidance for the full year.

Just Marguerite, on the CLA, what can we expect from that just to clarify a bit what the expectation should be?

[indiscernible] what you can expect that it is an important moment for bank, for colleagues. We enter these negotiations in a spirit of, I would say, transparency and respectful approach. I am confident that both from management and unions, everyone will have a halt to reach an outcome that will be in the interest of all our colleagues, but also the long-term health of the bank. And I cannot speculate, of course, on negotiations that have not started. They will happen in June. But I think the period is the right one.

The next question comes from Namita Samtani from Barclays.

My first question when you note that the current curve provides EUR 100 million upside to your commercial NII already this year, does that also include an offset from your 100% pass-through assumption or what's the pass-through assumption here for 2026 in terms of deposits?

And then secondly, just on the ROE in the corporate bank, the first quarter ROE of 9.5%. It's a lot better than in the fourth quarter, but it still falls quite short of the 12% group ambition by 2028. So how do you see margins in the corporate business and what else needs to be done to improve ROE, yes.

Thank you very much. I will -- take your questions to short remarks on my side. One, we have -- you may have seen or slide describing how the underlying assumptions we provide in our -- for our mitigating portfolio. So I think you have -- but I will let Ferdi take you through these assumptions. With respect to CB, I think we are indeed moving at pace within our Corporate Banking, improving our profitability, which is our main target for CB. So we are actually quite comfortable with the pace we are having. Keep in mind that the target we have for CB in '28 is 11% for this division. Ferdi?

Yes, Namita, specifically the assumptions for our liability margin and that's what we explained during the CMD. For the trajectory, we assume broadly stable margins, so 100% pass-through on interest-paying deposits. So except for current accounts in our replicating portfolio and have we seen an increase overall in replicated portfolio to around EUR 175 billion, and roughly 30% of our debt or EUR 50 billion is current accounts, and the current accounts where we pay 0 interest on that is structurally accretive. So the current accounts is the full explanation of the increase in the liability margin, you see on Slide 10 in the presentation and the margins move in line with the yield of the replicating portfolio.

The next question comes from Delphine Lee from JPMorgan.

So the first one is on -- just going back to cost -- so just to check, first of all, what was your sort of wage increase assumption in your business plan just we have kind of a rough idea of what to expect this? And then just in terms of the cost trajectory, I mean, execution clearly is much stronger -- is -- do you intend to still keep the same target in terms of FTE reduction?

Or could that grow even further than that? Or do you intend to invest a bit more? Just to understand maybe what are the sort of moving parts in between now and 2028. And on -- the second question is on the payout. I mean clearly, I mean, CET1 has been consistently above 15% now. comfortably above 15%. And the mortgage floor removal will finance sort of the NIBC acquisition largely.

So just trying to think why -- should we assume that with Q4 results, we should definitely get more than 100% total payout and then if I could squeeze a last one, if that's possible? Any guidance on other income, which has been a bit weaker and how much of that is kind of like structural? If you could give a bit more guidance on that line, that would be helpful.

Thank you very much for your questions. I will -- Ferdi will take the one on other income. On capital distribution, let me reiterate what I shared with you in the presentation. Indeed, we are committed to returning at least EUR 7.5 billion of capital into pay out up to 100% of our net profit over '26 to '28. This is what we committed at our CMD. These are serious commitments.

Indeed, the removal of the DNB mortgage floor is an upside to our plan, and so it benefits our capital position. But we also shared at all CMD if over a period of time, our capital position remains significantly above our target and if we are delivering on our strategic ambitions, we may consider additional distributions, but that assessment, we are not making it today. We're at an early stage of our plan. We are pleased with the strong start we are making and right now very much focused on our execution.

I will reiterate the same on costs. We improved our cost guidance of '26. We are not changing the FTE trajectory we shared at our CMD. We achieved 40% of this trajectory already, but I also indicated that this pace will moderate over time. So it's good that we made a strong start in the plant, but this figure is not being updated or change right now. On other income?

Yes, on other income and the last point, what is in our plans. That was also your question, underlying it's 2% inflation, Delphine. But we also said if inflation is high, we will absorb it to realize the targets and guidance we provided.

Then for other income, that has been lower than average in the past few quarters, mainly led to number one was the results of equity participations and direct equity investments that was roughly EUR 10 million to EUR 30 million lower than average because it's clearly not a very favorable market for revaluation and exits.

And number two, it was the ALM results in other income. That was in the past 3 years that was lower negative than what we currently see, and that is mainly relating increased hedging costs due to market volatility. So those are the underlying explanation. It's volatile, so we do not provide specific guidance on other income, but we just tried to be helpful in explaining what the underlying buckets are -- the only thing what I want to mention, and we said that before, you do see incidentals in there. And for example, we already indicated that for Q4 this year, we expect roughly EUR 100 million net impact book loss for the sale of our consumer credit business, and that will be booked in other income, just to be mindful, try to be helpful for your modeling.

But also to help you going back to your cost question on the CLA just for you to have in mind. First that, just our staff in the Netherlands represents overall 85% of our internal FTEs just to give you an idea of the scope and also as a rule of thumb, 1% CLA increase at least roughly EUR 20 million to EUR 30 million higher cost per annum. Just for you to have these metrics that can help you in your modeling.

The next question comes from Benjamin Goy from Deutsche Bank.

Two questions, please, on commercial net interest income. The first on loan demand, your remarks on the Dutch economy sounded quite positive, but I just want to confirm the trends you see on loan demand now with basically 2 months of higher interest rates, whether it's on the mortgage side, whether you see a small impact going forward maybe? And on the corporate side, whether there is a change in behavior, whether you see less investment loans and demand for that? And then secondly, your liability margin stabilized in Q1. Should we expect at the current rates already an inflection and moving up in Q2? Or when do you think would it happen?

Thanks. Ferdi will take the question on liability margins. What we observed in the economy right now and also based on many conversations we currently have with our clients. First, the Dutch economy is resilient, and as I said, has been entering this period with -- from a position of strength. And overall, this is an economy that is overperforming on average, the EU economy and has very strong buffers.

We gave on the mortgage side, I think, very clear indications on what we observed in the housing market, i.e., after record years of growth, we do expect housing prices to moderate and we do expect a number of transactions to slightly decrease in '26 and '27 compared with the record high we had reached last year. What we see in the conversations we have with our clients is that they are, overall, I would say, resilient. I think they know how to out.

At the same time, of course, they have concerns on the current, I would call the geopolitical stalemate because we are also aware, and you have it in the notes of our economic role, that a prolonged conflict would have an additional impact on energy prices, and we factor in more in -- I would say, end of June, beginning of July, if no solution were to be found, that could be impactful in terms of secondary effects on growth and inflation. So I think right now, we are comfortable and we find economy resilience, but it will all depend on the length of the conflict. Thirdly, on liability emerging.

Yes, Benjamin, you don't get it directly from the margin graph but the liability margin very marginally improved in Q1. That's in the 114 basis points. So it's just less than 1 basis point. But that increase was more pronounced clearly at the end of the quarter in March when the interest rate started moving.

And what you do see for this quarter that the improvement is mainly from the replicated portfolio with shorter duration. So that is mainly wealth portfolio and it will take more time for the benefit of portfolios with a slightly longer duration to start feeding into our replicating portfolio. So the higher-yielding swaps are gradually coming in. So that means that further liability improvements over the coming quarter is definitely expected.

And lastly, Benjamin, just reiterated in the liability margin is only an increase of the current accounts because it's our underlying assumption that you have a full both for deposits where interest is being paid.

The next question comes from Matthew Clark from Mediobanca.

Two questions, please. One is on the wealth management cost of risk or credit loss provisions, which have been unusually high for the past couple of quarters. So can you give us a bit more insight on what's driving that because it's a bit unusual to see that in Wealth Management divisions.

And then the second question is on the DNB mortgage floor capital release coming later in the year. Do you expect to see some of that benefit passed on to customers via tighter mortgage spreads? Or do you think that benefit stays with shareholders as capital relief?

Thank you very much for your questions. Serena, I may let you answer the question on wealth management and cost of risk. On the DNB mortgage store impact, we are, of course, operating in a competitive market. And so since this is an impact that is benefiting all banks in the Netherlands. This will also be reflected in the competition market and the pricing.

This is something that will happen in November. So it is too early to speculate on price impact. But indeed, this is a competitive market. So all things being equal, it will also be reflected in pricing. Serena on Wealth Management?

Yes. Thanks. And thanks for the question. Indeed, low impairment showed an increase in Wealth Management. This is due to a few single cases and individual cases and files, which were booking our wealth management franchise that underlying are also corporate loans, we feel comfortable with the positions and on the underwriting criteria and these are just individual activities, but no correlations with other.

Can you clarify whether they're part of your legacy business or whether they're part of HAL business.

Our underlying business of entrepreneurs and wealth management activities, and we are continuing to do these activities in all the countries in the wealth franchise. And again, it's a couple of single cases that we do not comment on. But all in all, what you have to bear in mind is that these are our dual clients from wealth management and our underwriting process are exactly the same for these clients in Wealth Management are they are for [ CB ], these are the same teams. So you should not have any specific concerns.

The next question comes from Johan Ekblom from UBS.

Just maybe starting on the cost side. If we look at the FTE reductions you've achieved, it looks like the vast majority, certainly this quarter, but also last year came from a reduction in external FTEs. Which I guess is the positive -- there'll probably be on average, more expensive, but the slower reduction pace we're seeing internal FTEs.

Is that a timing effect rather big differences between gross and net from internalization. Just trying to understand kind of the easy pickings are done and it gets harder from here? Or if there's anything else we should consider there? And then secondly, just coming back to the mortgage floor release. I guess, have you had any conversations with regulators as to whether this capital release is kind of distributable.

I mean there's been a number of banks that have struggled to push beyond the 100% payout. But as this is the kind of one-off capital relief on your side, is that an opportunity to engaged in such a discussion with the regulator? Or have you attempted to do so?

Thank you very much. I like very much the way we -- all your questions, and I fully understand it, I'll try to get more on this topic. But I will only reiterate and so not speculate on anything, only reiterate to -- on what I've already said when it comes to capital distribution, again, we assess our capital situation at Q4, and we don't speculate before that.

On FTE reductions, you're right. The bulk of the impact so far has come from reductions in our external workforce. What we have done also in these past quarters is internalize some of these external talents into our internal teams because we want to make sure that we always have the best talent and expertise. It is true, for instance, in IT or tech but not only. So that also explains the differences you may observe between internal and external FTEs.

As we shared also at our CMD, everything we shared in terms of cost savings, and I would say of everything we said in the CMD is grounded in business cases. So basically, we actually know how we are executing on this trajectory. It is grounded on it's a bank-wide effort grounded in overall simplifications of all bank. We provided a number of examples in terms of integrating or asset-based finance within the main banks simply filing recently fine DFC.

You name it. So everything is rounded -- so we know how to execute on that over time. And as I indicated, you will see the pace moderating in the coming quarters, and this is expected in part of our trajectory.

Yes. And maybe on the mortgage floor, what I can say there Johan, we said it before. We see it also as a simplification, gold plating and also a fragmentation of macroprudential buffers, we've always said, we do see quite an overlap with the countercyclical buffer. So we think it's a logical step, but you should not have a direct link that we in the release of the market floor into distributable capital.

The next question comes from Alberto Artoni from Intesa Sanpaolo.

I just have one because the other one has been already answered. On NII, you provided the indication that the current forward rate would everything else being equal, improve the NII for 2026 by about EUR 100 million? And what would be the impact in future years? Should we think of a similar type of impact or higher or lower?

Thank you for your question. Ferdi, you can sort of infer it for more graphs, but I don't know if Ferdi if you want to elaborate on that.

Yes. I mean what we can say here have forward curve chase continuously. But if you look at the forward curve today, there are definitely potential benefits. For 2028, we have not provided guidance. But during the CMD, we provided an indication that NII, commercial NII could rise to EUR 7.2 billion, including NBC based on the economic outlook and interest rate for cost at that time.

And for now, it's too early to start looking at do we want to change this indication or not. But as Marguerite said earlier, we maybe midyear is a better point to start reevaluating for the interest rate at that time. So for now, no changes.

The next question comes from Anke Reingen from RBC.

I just have a follow-up question on the replication portfolio. I just wanted to confirm that your NII guidance basically assumes stable volumes on the replication portfolio. And then I was wondering, I guess it's gone up from EUR 165 million to EUR 175 billion in the quarter. Would that not already explain quite a large part of the upgrade in NII or not because the part of current accounts has come down from EUR 65 million to EUR 50 billion. Or is it not quite comparable, if you can please clarify?

Yes. On the NII guidance, yes, the replicating portfolio increased, but the biggest part there was demand deposits are not current accounts. So that is underlying this assumption. And then secondly, your question again on NII sensitivity, we really plot that versus the current account, which is roughly EUR 50 billion in this. So that is the basis for our guidance for '26.

So just to confirm your -- on your NII guidance, you assume a replication portfolio unchanged with EUR 50 billion of current accounts and the EUR 50 billion is comparable...

Underlying, if you look at our assumption, we do expect deposit growth. We said that earlier. It's a deposit growth from roughly EUR 2 million per quarter. Seasonally a bit lower, a part of that might be current accounts. So there's also underlying assumptions clearly in our NII guidance that we do see volume growth.

The next question comes from Shrey Srivastava from Citi.

Just again on the NII. On the EUR 100 million, uplift, obviously, assumes a full pass-through active dynamic you're seeing that would suggest this. Because if I look at what happened in the last hiking cycle, it would seem particularly on the demand deposit side that you passed through a significant proportion less than this of the older 50% to 60%.

And a second one is just a clarification. If you could confirm how much of your sort of short duration replication portfolio is geared to 3 months versus 6 months versus the other buckets?

For your question, I will let Ferdi answer that. But indeed, bear in mind that since we are operating in a competitive environment, we also, I would say, take fairly mechanistic assumptions in our replicating portfolio so that you can make your calculation, but we do not make hypothesis in terms of pricing behavior based on competition in the market because I would have also a commercial impact. So we don't do that. So we have more, I would say, a mechanistic approach of the behavior of the portfolio, but Ferdi.

Yes. Then so exactly you could say, are we conservative or not, but there's definitely competition in the market. So you got early, it's conservative. If we have more indication of pass-through, we will update our guidance on the back of that. If you look at our replication portfolio, we invested off the whole curve. So up until 10 years, the only thing we said there, around 40% of the replicating portfolio reprices within 1 year, and a big part of that is in the 3-month bucket. The overall duration is 3 years of the replicated portfolio to give some more indication.

And if I may just very quickly follow up, if assuming we do get some ECB rate hikes this year. Do you expect any material difference in competitive behavior from the last time the ECB hike rates a few years ago? Has anything changed that we should be thinking about?

Well, one thing also you need to take into consideration in the hypothesis of our economic is that we price like the market with price right now, 2 hikes in at the same time or assumptions, and that's also based to the normalization of the current geopolitical events that -- this increase will be reversed in '27. And that's not necessarily what you see in the forward curve.

So this is also, I would say, different assumptions. And I mentioned it because then depending on the more or less lasting effects, you may have also different competitive and pricing behavior and also expectations from clients. So it depends really on how you expect the coming -- I mean, the current events to evolve over time.

And it's also the main banks don't price directly of ECB rate that was price on the back of the replicating portfolio yields, so also take that into account as most of the larger bank run their deposits in replicating portfolios.

The next question comes from Farquhar Charles Murray from Autonomous.

Two questions from me. The first one is actually following on the competitive discussion on the last question. So on the deposit competition side, have you actually seen smaller players move? And is that on the savings accounts or more on the term side of things.

And more generally, from your own perspective, does the degree of volatility you see the scenarios that are out there kind of encourage us to move quickly or actually slowly? And then secondly, the leverage ratio is off quite a bit Q-on-Q. I know there's some kind of seasonality to that, but it seems a bit of the heavier end of things. So I wondered whether the volatility in the market and maybe clearing it played a part in that and what we might then expect in the second quarter?

Certainly, on the competitive dynamics of the market and behavior of...

Farquhar, clearly, what you do start seeing in some of the more challenger and smaller banks are starting to price up. So you do see the competition there. So there are also ahead.

That's also one of the underlying reasons we are more conservative there in our assumption. If you look at the leverage ratio, that was your second question. Yes, it decreased to just below 5%, but that is mainly what you see in Q1 because the exposure measure increases, and that is more the -- on balance sheet exposures. And at the same time, it was partly offset by an increase in our pro forma Tier 1 and Tier 1 capital.

The next question comes from Giulia Aurora Miotto from Morgan Stanley.

Sorry for coming back on the queue. I thought it's an efficient short call. So maybe there is space for a couple more, if everyone else has been answered.

On the restructuring costs, I was a bit surprised that these have been moved mostly to '27, '28. And I don't know whether to interpret that as, number one, Well, maybe it's actually cheaper to achieve what you set out to achieve. And so you just keep them there push them forward, but maybe ultimately, they're not going to come, which is something that some other banks are hinting to, thanks to AI or for some reason, I don't know you're going more slowly on the internal FTE reduction, and therefore, these are going to come more in '27 and '28.

And then a second follow-up. On the mortgage floor, which is coming out, so my understanding on this floor is that it was put in place for -- essentially to make sure that the banks already think about the output floors, right? Because the output floors can be quite impactful on mortgages. And if we remove it, but you write 10-year mortgage today, which has a tenure -- which matures in a time when you already have the output floors. In theory, you should sort of price the same. So I was a bit surprised that you said, well, yes, potentially the pricing adjusts. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that? Or maybe give us an indication that the output floor is not going to come through.

I will let Ferdi answer your question on the output floor, but I think based on also on last report disclosure, you can calculate it. But Ferdi, will lead you through that.

In terms of restructuring costs, what we shared at our CMD is out we had a total of roughly EUR 400 million over the course of the plan. We already took around EUR 100 million in '25. We indicated at Q1 out of the EUR 63 million we are booking at Q1.

This is primarily related to the integration of HAL. So this is most of what you would expect. So I think we gave you a fairly good indications of where you should see this restructuring charges impact over time. They are the reflection of us implementing quarter-after-quarter or strategic plan and for this quarter, primarily the integration of HAL. Ferdi, on the impact of the output.

Yes. Giulia, on the ARPU floors I made in my comments earlier that the structural overlap and all the different buffers. So the Dutch markets floor was put into place for a potentially systemic risk in the housing market in the Netherlands by the dependency or the big part of mortgages on the balance sheet of banks. There was clear overlap with a countercyclical buffer, which is 2% in the Netherlands, which is also a releasable buffer.

If you look at the phase-in period of the output floor towards 2032, we have said earlier, specifically for us, that will not have any impact because the result of this is clearly that for the biggest part of non-retail, we are standardized. So yes, there's quite a gap between the full phasing of the output for versus the RWA, we're currently reporting.

So arguably, that buffer is getting smaller with the discontinuation of the output floor. So for us, there is no impact in the thinking of the DNB that might also have been some part of thinking in that with the full phasing of the output floor is an additional prudential lever for potential and systemics.

I believe there are no further questions in the line. So if that's the case, we want to thank you very much for your attention participating in this call this morning. And of course, should you have any further questions, our Investor Relations team is, as always, at your disposal. Have a very good day.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders and depository receipt holders, I'm pleased to open this meeting. Welcome to this General Meeting of Shareholders. As usual, I'll tell you everybody who is present on behalf of the bank. And on behalf of the Supervisory Board, the entire Supervisory Board is present. I'm the Chairman. To my left is Michiel Lap is Vice Chair of the Supervisory Board and Chair of the Risk and Capital Committee. This is Laetitia Griffith, Daniel Hartert, Mariken Tannemaat; Sarah Russell, who chairs the Audit Committee; Femke de Vries as Chair of the Supervisory Sustainability Committee; and myself, I'm the Chair of the Supervisory Board and also of the Selection and Nominations Committee.

On behalf of the Executive Board, the following Board members are present. Some are facing you on the stage, others are elsewhere in the room. To my right is Marguerite Berard, CEO; Ferdinand Vaandrager, CFO; Serena Fioravanti, Chief Risk Officer. In the -- elsewhere in the room, Carsten Bittner, CI&TO; Dan Dorner, the Head of our Corporate Banking; Choy van der Hooft-Cheong, Head of Wealth Management; and of course, Annerie Vreugdenhil, Head of Personal and Business Banking.

The Secretary to this meeting is, as usual, Hanneke Dorsman to my left, General Counsel and ABN AMRO Company Secretary. On behalf of E&Y, our auditor, Hanneke Overbeek who is present. And on behalf of the Employee Council, Arlene Bosman. Welcome, Arlene.

We have civil law notary Bart Jan Kuck from Zuidbroek present to supervise the correct conduct of the voting at this meeting.

Please note the following procedural announcements. Shareholders and depository receipt holders are attending this general meeting in person. That's -- as was also possible to exercise voting rights via electronic or written proxy. The meeting will be conducted in Dutch, as you can hear. Marguerite Berard will be delivering her presentation in English. Questions to her may be asked in Dutch, still, she reserves the right to reply in English. And as usual, this meeting will be broadcast live via webcast on the ABN AMRO website in both Dutch and English.

This entire meeting will be audio recorded for the minutes. The minutes of this meeting will be made available for a comment on ABN AMRO's website for 3 months from 21 July 2026 at the latest. And after that, they will be adopted according to the Articles of Association and signed by the Chairman and the Secretary.

The shareholders and depositary receipt holders have been duly convened pursuant to the law and the articles of association. This meeting is, therefore, authorized to adopt valid resolutions, and shareholders and depositary receipt holders have not submitted any proposals for consideration at this meeting.

I'll now briefly elaborate on the proceedings during the meeting. If you read the convening notice, you'll have seen the agenda. And we would like to give all shareholders and depository receipt holders the opportunity to follow the meeting and participate actively. When answering questions at each agenda item, we will start by addressing the questions we received in advance. And next, we will answer questions asked by participants at the meeting.

Some agenda items comprise multiple parts or even many parts such as agenda item 2. We will first deal with all the parts and presentations relating to an individual agenda item consecutively, and we'll then answer all questions relating to those presentations as a whole. At agenda item 2, this will happen following E&Y's presentation. Since agenda Item 2E is put to you for an advisory vote, you will be given the opportunity to ask questions on this matter prior to the vote, provided that they relate to the remuneration report for 2025.

During the meeting, you may ask questions by using the microphones. And to give everybody a chance, please limit your questions to a maximum of 3 per agenda item during the meeting. Throughout the meeting, you will have the opportunity to cast your vote. As you can see, the vote is already open at this moment. The vote may remain open until the conclusion of agenda Item 10, which is the final agenda item to be voted on. And we will, therefore, announce the voting results only at the end of the meeting. And that concludes the procedural matters I wanted to share with you.

Before I give the floor to Marguerite Berard for the Executive Board report, I'd like to start by reflecting on the past year and make a few comments about the world in which we are taking our responsibilities today. The past year and the first few months of this year once again experienced major geopolitical tensions. In addition to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, we now also witness a serious escalation of the conflict between the United States and Israel on the one hand, and Iran on the other hand.

Aside from the extensive local destruction caused by this conflict, it's seriously disrupting global energy and raw material supply chains. And this has immediate consequences for global economic development affecting both economic activity and inflation. Inevitably, the bank's customers will also experience these -- the consequences, and it's also causing deep human suffering throughout the region, impacting many families.

At the same time, the international system of multilateral cooperation is increasingly under pressure. Institutions that for decades were cornerstones of safety and security are being challenged. Especially in these circumstances, it's important to continue building unity in Europe and to support a stable political situation in the Netherlands. As we -- as a bank remains steadfast, we take responsibility and continue to reach out and seek cooperation.

Despite all this turbulence, ABN AMRO has performed well and is progressing steadily. The 2025 results were strong. Costs are better under control than ever and optimization of our capital is progressing steadily. Strategically, we have taken important steps. Marguerite Berard's arrival as CEO has visibly brought new momentum, and with the acquisition of HAL Private Bank and the proposed acquisition of NIBC, we are strengthening our leverage in the Netherlands and Northwest Europe. Our renewed strategy focused on profitable growth, value creation and supporting crucial transitions is beginning to crystallize visibly. Our clearing activities are also playing an increasingly prominent role here. These activities are conducive to a robust and internationally connected bank.

Like the wider economy, the financial sector is increasingly confronted with rapid technological changes, especially, the applications of artificial intelligence. As things stand, these developments are likely to significantly impact how we do our work in her presentation, Marguerite will address this.

For 2026, our focus is on implementing our strategy and building on the current momentum that is undeniably perceptible within the bank. In addition, the focus is on employee engagement, additional simplification and optimization are reducing risk-weighted assets and maintaining constructive dialogue with our regulators.

Last but not least, I thank our employees. They have once again endured a year filled with changes and challenges. Their professionalism, resilience and dedication form the foundation of the trust our customers place in us. On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I'm grateful to our staff for their wonderful commitment.

I now conclude my introduction as well as agenda item 1, and that takes us to the agenda starting with 2a, which is the discussion of the Executive Board report, and I'm pleased to give the floor to Marguerite Berard.

Speaking English. My touch is progressing, but not good enough to sustain a full presentation.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. In the next few minutes, I will take you through the key components of what we achieved in 2025, the strategy we have set for the years ahead and the progress we have already made.

2025 was my first year at ABN AMRO, and I'm deeply grateful for the way I've been welcomed to the bank and to the Netherlands. I found ABN AMRO to have strong brands, deep client relationships and people who genuinely care about the bank. That gives us a very strong foundation for our next phase of development. We have set together an ambitious strategy. We have talented people, and we have started executing against our strategy in 2025.

2025, you mentioned it, Tom, was a successful year with many highlights. We operated in an environment that was shaped by geopolitical and economic change. Global markets faced greater uncertainty, and the broader impact of artificial intelligence moved higher on the agenda for all of us. At the same time, the Dutch economy continued to perform well, which supported our activity in many of our core businesses. Against that backdrop, ABN AMRO delivered good financial results. We grew our mortgage portfolio and we grew our customer deposits. We generated strong fee growth, supported, in particular, of course, by the addition of HAL, but also good momentum in client activity. Credit quality remains solid and our capital position stayed strong.

2025 also marked an important strategic milestone for the bank. We launched our new strategy, with long-term ambitions and a clear set of priorities for the short term. You mentioned it, Tom, we see AI, artificial intelligence, as one of the most important developments of our lifetime, with clear relevance for the future of banking. Our approach is both disciplined and practical. We use AI where it solves real clients and business problems. We build it on strong data, sound processes and clear guardrails. Already, this has led to more than 30 Gen AI cases being used at scale in production today. We are ensuring that our staff, our colleagues are AI literate and can adopt these tools confidently, responsibly and at scale.

ABN AMRO, I mentioned it's delivered a strong performance in 2025, and we are starting our next chapter with focus and with momentum. Our strategy starts with purpose. The purpose has not changed. Banking for better for generations to come. Purpose matters because it guides where we choose to invest, how we serve our clients and how we create long-term value. From that foundation, we have set 5 long-term ambitions. We want to strengthen our position in Dutch retail banking. We aim to become a top 5 European private bank. We will continue to support family wealth and businesses, which are the true backbone of the economy. And we support European autonomy by financing key transitions in digital, energy, infrastructure and defense. We will also continue to invest in clearing to maintain our global top 3 position. These ambitions built on areas where ABN AMRO already has real strength. That gives the bank a clear sense of direction and a practical agenda for growth.

We have translated these long-term ambitions into 3 short-term priorities. The first one is to grow profitably. Our 5 long-term ambitions, I mentioned it, they determine where we want to grow and where we see the best opportunities to create value. Our second short-term priority is to rightsize our cost base, and we aim to realize EUR 900 million of cost savings by 2028. To achieve this, we will keep transforming and simplify our organization, reduce the complexity of our IT landscape and increase the efficiency through artificial intelligence and automation.

Our third strategic priority is to keep optimizing our capital allocation. We deploy capital where we can achieve a higher return on equity, applying strict criteria for growth and exiting underperforming exposures. By improving our data quality, we can further reduce our risk-weighted assets. And the capital relief we get from our significant risk transfer operations, we use it to grow in profitable sectors and products. These priorities are supported by clear financial targets for 2028. We are aiming for a return on equity of more than 12%. We are aiming for a cost/income ratio below 55%. We are targeting capital allocation to corporate banking, excluding clearing, of around 50%. Over the next 3 years, we expect to distribute around EUR 7.5 billion of capital to our shareholders. These targets reflect a bank that combines growth, efficiency and strong capital discipline. They are both ambitious and achievable. They are grounded in business cases from all across the bank. Most importantly, these targets rely on levers that are within our control and for which we take clear responsibility. That gives us confidence in the credibility of our plan and the path from strategy to delivery.

In 2025, we made good progress already in the areas where we want to grow. In Dutch Retail Banking, the strong housing market continued to support demand. Our mortgage portfolio grew by more than EUR 8 billion in 2025, and our market share remained strong at 19%. The bank is incredibly well equipped to handle higher mortgage volumes with shorter turnaround times and more dynamic pricing.

Customer deposits also increased by around EUR 29 billion in 2025, also, of course, reflecting the addition of HAL. Our intended acquisition of NIBC, we keep adding scale and strengthen our ability to accelerate and keep growing over time.

In SME banking, New10 reached EUR 1 billion, EUR 1 billion in financing for more than 10,000 entrepreneurs. This is, I think, a good example of how we can combine digital capabilities with client relevance.

In Wealth Management, commercial effectiveness increased. We deepened client engagement. We strengthened follow-up and guided more clients from savings into investment solutions that can create long-term value. The integration of HAL will accelerate our ambitions in private banking and is supporting family wealth and businesses.

In Corporate Banking, we financed transition sectors in Northwest Europe, and we continue to grow. We also delivered higher fees in clearing in global markets. Together, these developments show that profitable growth is already visible across the areas where we have chosen to invest.

Our second priority, I said it, is to rightsize the cost base of the bank. By the end of 2025, around 30% of the targeted FTE reduction have already been realized. External staffing came down strongly through tighter hiring controls. Internal staffing were broadly stable as some external roles were internalized as part of our business, of course, continued to grow and to develop.

Out of the EUR 900 million of cost savings that we planned for 2028, around EUR 160 million have already been achieved by year-end '25, mainly from commercial optimization and the streamlining of our IT landscape. This is exactly the kind of progress we want to see. Execution starts with very practical steps and consistent follow-through. We also made good progress in optimizing capital allocation, which is our third priority. Over 2025, credit risk risk-weighted assets decreased by EUR 6.6 billion. That was supported by optimization, data quality improvements and risk transfers. At the same time, we worked on improving the stability and the predictability of our risk-weighted assets and our capital position. The work on capital allocation allows us to deploy more capital to higher return opportunities and to support future growth with discipline.

Prioritization also means making clear choices in our portfolio of activities. In 2025, we therefore decided to wind down asset-based finance activities in Germany, in the U.K. and in France. We also made a choice to discontinue our brand, Moneyou, and we took steps to sell Alfam. These decisions require care, require transparency and require respect for all those who are impacted.

I mentioned it. Our capital position remains very strong. That gives us the flexibility to invest in our strategy, but also to provide attractive returns to our shareholders. For 2025, we proposed a final dividend of EUR 0.70 per share. Together with the interim dividend of EUR 0.54 per share, this brings the total dividend to EUR 1.24 per share. That equals a 50% payout of our net profit. But in addition, we also announced EUR 500 million of additional distribution. This consists of a EUR 250 million additional cash dividend and EUR 250 million of share buyback program. So as a result, -- so total payout of the bank in 2025 is 87%.

At our Capital Markets Day in November, we also announced our intention to return more capital over the 2026-2028 period. A stronger valuation and a clear capital distribution policy supports the bank's ability to pursue its own path and continue creating value over time.

Sustainability remains central to our purpose and is a key enabler of our growth and our strategy. Our strategy is becoming increasingly practical and impact-oriented, with a focus on the carbonization. Supporting our clients in achieving their emission targets helps us move closer to our own ambitions, net zero by 2050. In November, we announced our intention to align our full lending book emissions to a well below 2-degree pathways. This alignment will serve as a backstop to our decarbonization goals. Paris is our minimum. While our sectorial targets and the majority of our sectorial targets are 1.5 degrees aligned and they're on track. We will continue to steer on them, and we will continue to bring on clients to that decarbonization. Whether it's via new initiatives like better Beter Wonen to support mortgage clients in making their homes more efficient or our latest commitment to reach EUR 8 billion in renewable energy financing, we will be there to enable emission reductions. We will also continue to work on new commercial propositions for all our clients and we will continue to develop new tools and new incentives for our bankers to help drive further emission reductions over the long run.

Let me close by comparing our performance in '25 with the target we have set to ourselves for 2028. In '25, we delivered a return on equity of 8.7%. Our cost income ratio was 64.4%. Our total income was EUR 8.7 billion. Our CET1 ratio was 15.4%, and our capital allocation to corporate banking was 51%.

For 2028, our direction is clear. We are targeting a return on equity above 12% with a cost/income ratio below 55%. By 2028, our income will have increased to above EUR 10 billion. We are targeting a CET1 ratio above 13.75% and capital allocation of around 50% to the corporate bank.

Our strategy is ambitious and is achievable. But setting the strategy is only the beginning. Disciplined execution is what will make the difference, and that execution is already underway. Our main priority for '26 is to continue delivering against the choices we've made. Our progress so far gives me confidence that we will meet our targets even with ongoing political -- geopolitical, I'm sorry, volatility. We have strong roots to grow from, including a diversified business model, solid market positions, balanced risk management and confidence in the solidity of our bank.

And before I close, I would also like to thank Tom on behalf of all of us at ABN AMRO, not only for his leadership, but also for the way he has helped shape the bank over the years. As this is his last AGM, I think it's a fitting moment to express a gratitude on behalf of all of us. Thank you very much, Tom.

Thank you. [Foreign Language] Marguerite. Thank you very much. Let's move on to point 2b of the agenda, which is the -- sorry, I have to go back to Dutch. I'm so used to speaking in English.

[Interpreted] Now on to agenda Item 2b, discussing the Supervisory Board report. You'll find the extended version in the annual report, and I will briefly elaborate on it.

Partly in view of my imminent departure and to ensure continuity of the activities of the Supervisory Board member, the Selection and Nominations Committee conducted a reequipment and selection process for a new member of the Supervisory Board with banking experience. Following a positive recommendation from the Selection Nominations Committee, the Supervisory Board supported the proposal to appoint Jean-Pierre Mustier for a 4-year term as member of the Supervisory Board during this general meeting, and we'll discuss this in more detail at agenda Item 6.

Key areas of focus for the Supervisory Board have included succession management and assessment of the revised strategic plan in terms of strategic priorities, financial ambitions, capital position and overall strategic resilience. Marguerite just explained this very well and adequately.

Considerable attention has also been devoted to general economic trends and major technical article changes facing the financial sector.

In addition, the Supervisory Board addressed organic and nonorganic growth at length. For example, that previously mentioned, acquisition of HAL as well as the intention to acquire NIBC as well as cost trends, capital position, financially, nonfinancial risks. And certainly, also culture data, simplifying the IT landscape, digitization, cybersecurity and anti-money laundering. The Supervisory Board has also devoted considerable time to growth. And in this context, I discussed acquiring NIBC. We received regular updates regarding the most significant financial and nonfinancial risks, internal risk management and the control framework. During these updates, the Executive Board's assessment of the effectiveness of the risk management and control system was monitored and discussed. And as in previous years, the progress of the anti-money laundering remediation programs was closely monitored by the Supervisory Board.

The Chief Commercial Officers of Wealth Management, Personal and Business Banking and Corporate Banking provided the Supervisory Board with quarterly business updates focused on dilemmas and challenges facing the client units. Market trends, strategic initiatives, income, cost control performance and nonfinancial risks were key themes in this regard.

In addition, the Supervisory Board addressed supervision of a number of the bank's larger subsidiaries. The 5 Supervisory Board committees, i.e., the Audit Committee, the Risk and Capital Committee, the Remuneration Committee, the Selection and Nomination Committee and the Supervisory Sustainability Committee discussed a wide range of matters to prepare for the Supervisory Board's meetings and its decision-making.

The Audit Committee conducted intensive discussions on trends in the financial results, the quarterly reports and the annual report. In addition, the Audit Committee discussed inter-alia reports from the internal and external auditors and continue to focus on data management and data and reporting programs.

Bank-wide risk reports and funding and capital plans were key topics for the Risk and Capital Committee. In addition, the Risk and Capital Committee was kept informed on a regular basis of the progress of AML remediation programs, as mentioned earlier. The Remuneration Committee advise the Supervisory Board on matters, including the performance of the Executive Board members and employees remunerated above the collective labor agreement level of exec. The KPI framework and KPI setting and retention arrangements for subsidiaries. In addition, the fines imposed by De Nederlandsche Bank for violating the bonus ban was discussed in detail.

The Selection and Nominations Committee advised the Supervisory Board on matters such as recruitment and selection, annual review of the Executive and Supervisory Board performance and amendment of the collective profile of the Supervisory Board.

In 2025, the Selection and Nominations Committee advise the Supervisory Board on the appointment of the CEO, Marguerite Berard, as well as the reappointment of Mariken Tannemaat and Daniel Hartert as members of the Supervisory Board. The committee also gave a positive recommendation on the appointment of Michiel Lap as Chairman of the Supervisory Board, reappointment of Sarah Russell as a Supervisory Board member and the proposed appointment of Jean-Pierre Mustier as a member. We will discuss this in more detailed agenda item 6, as stated.

The Selection and Nominations Committee also gave a positive recommendation regarding reappointments of the 3 executive Board members holding the title Chief Commercial Officer. Please note that the COO position within the Executive Board has been discontinued, following Ton van Nimwegen whose departure at the start of this year as part of the ongoing effort to simplify the bank structure wherever possible, the responsibilities of the COO portfolio will be distributed among other executive Board members.

Key topics for the Supervisory Sustainability Committee included climate strategy, commercial sustainability opportunities and initiatives within client units. The ESG report featuring updates on a range of strategic ESG-related initiatives, sustainability risk, ESG risk management governance and developments relating to EU ESG regulations.

The Supervisory Sustainability Committee issued a positive recommendation on the outcome of the 2025 CSRD double materiality assessment.

Intensive and constructive contact was maintained with various stakeholders throughout the year, including, of course, De Nederlandsche Bank, the European Central Bank, the AFM as well as NLFI and the ABN AMRO stock.

And this concludes the explanation of the Supervisory Board's report. I will now move on to Item 2C, which is the presentation by the Employee Council, which, as usual, but today for the last time, will be delivered by Chair Arlene Bosman. Please go ahead.

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, today, I am addressing you for the last time. Over the past 8 years, I have done this 6 times before, and I will take this opportunity to reflect on various themes that kept recurring.

In 2021, we appealed to move away from the one-size-fits-all approach to working from home. Due to the pandemic, we were forced to work from home at the time, but wanted to be in the office. Last year, I used the same phrase, but at that point to indicate that not everybody needs to be in the office with the same frequency. Now we mainly want to work from home, but also acknowledge the value of being together in the office. You could say that this change might have been a little too successful because we keep seeking the right balance.

The many reorganizations that occur when new CEOs take office and at the start of a new strategic period are also striking. We are currently in such a period. Again, we are steadily heading toward our goal with a target set at 1,500 FTEs by the end of 2025. For years, the employee participation body has been advocated more organic change. In 2021, I described this as moving from abrupt change involving compulsory redundancies to growing into a new situation. We have even devised a comprehensive approach together with HR sustainable change. Unfortunately, we apply this approach very little in practice and keep opting for reorganization instead. This change has therefore been less successful. And as the employee represented a body, we remain committed to it.

Sustainable change takes time, time to think ahead, time for employees to develop and evolve and time to actually find that new role. This is not always possible given the pace at which cost savings must now be realized. Sometimes that speed is necessary, but not always. If we were to apply true pricing to reorganizations, including the cost for HR, the works council and the loss of productivity of the employees concerned, I believe we would opt more frequently for organic change. Shouldn't we pay more attention to this? The employee participation body would like to engage in dialogue on this matter.

In 2023, I mentioned high staff turnover. In that year, the reorganization impacted 8,000 people, that led many people to feel insecure. If you're not careful, you lose the talent needed to build the future. And this supports paying attention to your employees. Give us the chance to grow and progress internally.

The ongoing recruitment freeze that I mentioned last year is forcing us to improve our internal mobility. This too takes time. It seems easier to find a jack of all trades on the external labor market than internally, but I'm deliberately using the term seems because such people are present at ABN AMRO. And if not, with some time and attention, you could, so to speak, help that extra trade come to fruition.

The final topic I'll mention is technical innovation. In 2023, I first mentioned artificial intelligence at a shareholders meeting. And since then, it has become a recurring theme in my writings. I'm pleased that ABN AMRO is staying on top of this and paying close attention. This is not -- there's not only talk of artificial intelligence, but plenty of development, experimentation training. We have no time to lose here.

Last year, the boundary conditions for the use of Gen AI were adopted within the bank and a request for advice. This is an important milestone for us. Next year, there will be a new chair from the Central Works Council. Equally importantly, the Supervisory Board will also have a new chair. We're delighted that Michiel Lap is taking over this important role from Tom de Swaan. On behalf of all my colleagues, I'm deeply grateful to Tom. You have restored calm in the Supervisory Board and have composed a diverse and highly expert team.

With the arrival of Jean-Pierre Mustier and the reappointments of Sarah Russell and the 3 CCOs, Annerie Vreugdenhil, Choy van der Hooft and Dan Dorner, we are fit for the future. A wise decision in our view.

We are deeply grateful to for everything you've done for ABN AMRO over the past 8 years. You have put in many hours. We regularly spoke with you. And during those chats and conversations, you're always very transparent showing your trust, and I deeply appreciated that. I wish you every happiness and success in whatever lies ahead. Thank you for listening.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Arlene. I would also like to take a moment to express our sincere appreciation for all your work. After you were leaving your role as Chair of the Employee Council after 8 years. And I know I speak on behalf of the entire bank in thanking you for the way we've been able to work together. You mentioned this as well. Our relationship has always been professional, open and mutually respectful. And I recall some very intensive conversations in my office on the 22nd floor in recent years. You have consistently championed the interests of our staff. Well, at the same time, you also kept in mind the broader responsibility that we shoulder as a bank. That was always very special. How you managed to weigh those 2 interests.

I have always valued the constructive dialogue with the Employee Council in general and with you in particular, in these conversations, everyone was clear about their own roles and responsibilities. And based on that, we always saw what would be best for the bank and for our people. And I don't think that many people outside the banking industry know about our tripartite consultation. It's not known in Dutch corporate governance. But we meet together with the Employee Council and the Supervisory and Executive Boards to discuss general matters concerning the bank, and that's how we keep each other informed of the trends from our perspective. And we're able to exchange ideas with the Employee Council about strategic trends at the bank. And quite honestly, I've always found those meetings highly enjoyable because each time I noticed that the Employee Council was deeply involved in the well-being of the bank, not only the employees, but with the bank in general. And I'd like to thank you as the driving force for that. Thank you for your dedication and your diligence and your tremendous commitment to the bank over the years, and we wish you all the best in whatever lies ahead. You have the world ahead of you. Thank you.

Now on to agenda Item 2d, which is corporate governance. And as usual, at this agenda item, we will discuss the highlights of the corporate governance structure and compliance with the relevant corporate governance codes. In the leadership and governance chapter in the annual report, you will have found an extended elaboration on this topic. Over the past year, an important but not unexpected change took place in our shareholder structure. Last year in May, NLFI announced that its stake had dropped to less than 1/3. As a consequence, NLFI no longer had prior approval rights with regard to, first, the issue of shares; and second, investments or divestments with the value exceeding 10% of the bank's equity. In September, NLFI announced it would be launching the following open market program, through which it intends to reduce shareholding to approximately 20%. And you will undoubtedly have noticed that the bank has made various announcements concerning mergers and acquisitions.

I'll walk you through them if you don't object regarding personal and business banking. There are 3 changes: Acquisition of NIBC Bank; the proposed merger of ABN AMRO mortgage group; and the sale of Alfam to Rabobank.

NIBC is a natural fit for ABN AMRO, enabling us to strengthen our prominence in the Dutch mortgage market. At the same time, we will realize considerable growth in our savings activities by purchasing this bank by adding high net worth retail clients. This expansion applies not only to the Dutch market but also to the Belgium and German markets. This superbly illustrates our strategy and focus.

And that also holds true for the proposed merger of the ABN AMRO mortgage group and the bank and the sale of Alfam. Both are aimed at simplifying the organization and improving operational efficiency. The acquisition of NIBC and sale of Alfam remains subject to the relevant regulatory approvals and consultations with the works councils. Both transactions are expected to be finalized in Q3 of this year.

Within Wealth Management, on 1 July 2025, the acquisition of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe Privatbank, also HAL, was completed. In doing so, this leading German private bank has thus become part of the ABN AMRO Bank. We will discuss the bank's integration plans for HAL at agenda Item 8.

In the 2025 annual report, ABN AMRO reported on its compliance with the corporate governance code. In 2025, ABN AMRO once again continues to comply with the corporate governance code this year. The codes and regulations chapter in the 2025 annual report provide additional information about this. In addition, on our website, you'll find a comprehensive overview of how the bank applies the corporate governance code. In the context of the most recent amendment to the corporate governance code, I'd like to talk about the implementation of the risk management statement, also known as the VOR, V-O-R. The VOR is a new requirement under the Corporate Governance Code since 20 March 2025. This statement provides stakeholders with greater transparency regarding how companies have structured their internal risk management and control statements, how these systems function and how effective they are.

The focus is on 4 risk areas: operational, compliance, financial reporting and sustainability reporting. The provisions from the corporate governance code relating to the VOR applied from the financial year starting on or after 1 January 2025. ABN AMRO has thus incorporated the VOR in the management control statement as included in the annual report.

Next, on to Item 2e because that covers Item 2d, the remuneration report. I will refer to the remuneration report in the 2025 annual report and as attached as a separate meeting document as well. I'm pleased to give Mariken Tannemaat, as a member of the Remuneration Committee, for a brief explanation. There she is. Yes, behind you.

[Interpreted] Yes, I've activated the microphone. Can everybody hear me? Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Remuneration Committee, I am pleased to elaborate on the remuneration report for 2025. Our remuneration policy is entirely aligned with our purpose banking for better for generations to come and is designed to attract, develop and retain talent in a manner consistent with our social role. In doing so, we consider applicable European and Dutch legislation, regulation, including CRD5, the Wbfo, and the EBA guidelines. These frameworks are the foundation for transparent and fair and responsible remuneration policy, clearly defining the link between performance behavior and remuneration.

2025 was a year of significant development. The bank announced temporary hiring freeze to curtail costs. In 2025, the bank also introduced a new strategy in which people and performance is one of the key pillars linked to the announced rightsizing of the organization. In 2025, De Nederlandsche Bank post a fine on ABN AMRO for breaching the bonus spend during the period 2016 to 2024. This fine relates to the salary and remuneration of various positions under the statutory board. The bank acknowledge this interpretation of the relevant statutory provisions was incorrect despite it having been drafted in good faith and paid the fine.

In 2025, significant attention was devoted to good employment practices. We continue to invest in well-being sustainable employability and modern employment conditions such as hybrid work and mobility schemes. This enables our employees to continue performing to work effectively, safely and in a future-proof manner. Performance assessment takes place via our global together and better framework in which employees set goals in terms of results, conduct development and risk awareness. A specific KPI framework applies to identify staff, including the executive Board, at least half of their objectives are non-financials. These include objectives in sustainability. Our NPS and risk and compliance. In 2025, we saw a tangible progress on sustainability and the climate plan and the KPI for risk compliance and regulatory was even exceeded. Altogether, variable remuneration for 2025 amounted to EUR 128 million, which is higher than last year, partly due to the acquisition of HAL.

For identified staff, variable remuneration is awarded in installment, 60% immediately, 40% deferred. Both components consist of half cash and half noncash instruments. No penalty was applied for 2025. This decision was taken following a sense of risk and conduct assessments. As in previous years, the Executive Board received only fixed remuneration due to the statutory bonus ban that is applicable. In 2025, the fixed remuneration was adjusted solely by collective agreement indexation and keeping with rules that apply for as long as the state remains a shareholder. Although benchmark research shows that the Executive Board's remuneration lags substantially behind the market and risks arise regarding retention, we have no scope to deviate from this. The Executive Board's performance in 2025 was assessed based on a comprehensive KPI framework. The financial targets presented a mixed picture with cost control in order, but requiring ongoing considerations and targets relating to sustainability and the climate plan were achieved and the results for risk compliance and regulatory were ahead of target. The employee engagement score fell slightly to 79%, but remains relatively high. Good results were also achieved in a customer level, particularly for the RNPS. The remuneration of the Supervisory Board in 2025 consisted exclusively of a fixed component, and this was adjusted for inflation by 4% on 1 January 2025, and by 1% on 1 July 2025, according to the policy frameworks.

Finally, regarding remuneration, of course, we continue to attribute great importance to transparency and ongoing dialogue with shareholders, employees and other stakeholders.

Ladies and gentlemen, I hope this explanation gives you a clear picture of the remuneration policy and the choices we make within our [indiscernible] and I look forward to your questions.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Mariken. Ladies and gentlemen, as mentioned at the start of the meeting, we'll now proceed to answering questions insofar as they relate to the 2025 remuneration report, only questions about that. Other questions are going to be answered after the next agenda item.

So we'll answer questions relating to the agenda items in the following order. First, questions we received in advance and then the questions asked by those present here. And as I said already, please limit the number of questions per agenda item to a maximum of 3. In this way, all shareholders and depository receipt holders will have an opportunity to ask questions within the time framing of this meeting.

We have not received any questions in advance. So are there any questions from the floor about the remuneration report, please? Mr. Bos, good afternoon.

Mr. de Swaan, former colleague of mine.

[Interpreted] Well, almost, well, let's not get into that.

[Interpreted] Yes, you were a former colleague. We're both pensioners. Half year already, right? Yes, okay. My name is Van de Bos, I'm a private shareholder. What Mrs. Tannemaat just explained surprises me. With respect to the penalty that had to be paid because of the bonuses. In my simple thinking, do we have an external auditor who keeps an eye on whatever is allowed in law and whatnot? And that brings me back to my former bugbear when we had high interest rates in a former subsidiary and the auditor was sleeping too? Or is this the wrong conclusion? Doesn't an auditor also review salaries, bonuses and check whether they're according to legal provisions or am I wrong?

[Interpreted] Answer. Well, Mr. Van de Bos, you're never wrong. Let me start by saying that. But I believe that you may not have been abreast of all developments. The thing that happened is there are obviously provisions. And it's always possible that one party interprets those provisions differently from another. And in this situation, that was indeed the case. We had a different interpretation on a small part. It's not about the bonus ban for the Executive Board or Supervisory Board, et cetera, et cetera. We are looking at minor amounts for a limited number of employees, about which we had a different interpretation of the legal provisions and De Nederlandsche Bank. This is all about 7 employees, lower in the hierarchy of the organization. We decided here to -- in the end, accept the other interpretation of De Nederlandsche Bank and on the basis of that, they issued a penalty. But we were of the full conviction that we had applied the legal provisions correctly. De Nederlandsche Bank was of a different opinion, a different interpretation. And in the end, we applied their interpretation, and that's how it went.

[Interpreted] Question. But if you have concern about a certain legal provision, more doubts, then wouldn't you have that assessed by, I don't know, some kind of experts, some kind of external consultancy that will offer a clear opinion about that and give whoever's interpretation, the bonus of being right?

[Interpreted] Answer. Well, the law is the law. It has an explanatory note, has an interpretation by the minister that is presented then to the parliament, et cetera, et cetera. All of that is a much broader basis. And then it can happen that even though you have good advisers, expert advisers as we had, that you can then still give that legal provision -- the provision in the law, but in the explanatory notes or in whatever letter the ministers sent to the parliamentary -- members of parliament, and that you give a different interpretation to one of those parts or documents. And this referred to a very minor amount. And at a certain point, we decided to follow and or accept the interpretation of De Nederlandsche Bank. And on that basis, this was concluded.

[Interpreted] Well, wasn't that then damage that you didn't assess correctly? I mean it's very simple. If I drive more than 100 kilometers per hour, then I'm penalized too.

[Interpreted] Answer. I believe that the interpretation of these remuneration provisions aren't as simple as 100 or 150 kilometers per hour.

[Interpreted] Shareholder. Well, I still don't understand it, and I understand that the interpretation is more difficult than my example. But thank you for your clarification.

[Interpreted] de Swaan. More questions about the remuneration report, please. First, the gentleman in the back.

[ Jesper Jensen ] on behalf of the Association of Private Shareholders. Again, a question about the penalty. So I heard it was a minor amount, but I looked into the decision issued by De Nederlandsche Bank. This is approachable behavior across a longer period of about 8 years. In order was given to stop paying out bonuses, still the bank continued. I'm sure there was a post mortem done. Can you say -- whatever that says about the culture at the bank in complying with rules? Was this really an interpretation mistake? Or have you consciously looked to -- looked for the limits or restrictions that regulators would set or pay. Further on Page of 378 in your annual report, you say that there are still open files with the regulator on this subject matter. What will happen? Is there more pain to be expected?

And my last question is on the possible mitigation of the bonus rules. There is a draft law that has to be voted on in the Senate. But how much room to maneuver? Does ABN AMRO expect there every year. There is a sentence in the annual report that explains the concerns of the bank in being competitive for talent, et cetera. Can -- are you then going to pay out bonuses? And can you give us more information?

[Interpreted] Answer. With respect to your first point, all I can say is that in the course of the years, we were in a constant dialogue with De Nederlandsche Bank about a change in the bonus legal provisions since 2025. The original provisions are -- date back to 2009, I believe. So there was an extension of the legal provisions, and this extension or this change was open for various interpretations. Now this was followed up by a letter by the minister and the discussion in the parliament. And the cases we're talking about, 7 to be precise. As a consequence to this change in bonus. I correct, it's 2015, the change, led to years of legal debate. And in the end, last year, we said, okay, we're prepared to accept the interpretation by De Nederlandsche Bank, and we paid the penalty sums. And by the way, we stopped long before that. We stopped paying out that bonus.

Second, is more of this ahead? The answer is no. This file has been closed and concluded.

Now with respect to the discussion in the Parliament that started recently, where a suggestion was made by the minister. To extend possibilities for bonus payments in the financial sector pertains to employees lower in the organization, specifically technical areas of work where the labor market is very scarce. It's difficult to attract nonregulated financial sector areas. This does not pertain to ABN AMRO. We do not fall under the normal rules for variable remuneration. With respect to the banking sector, with a top of 100% and the maximum of 20% of the full labor cost, that is not applicable to ABN AMRO because as long as the state remains a shareholder of ABN AMRO, we have a full bonus plan for those identified staff. We can pay at certain levels, a variable remuneration, but those employees under those levels cannot be paid a bonus, and that won't change.

[Interpreted] Question. You said you stopped. But if I read the decision -- the penalty decision, the payment was continued an extra tranche. Wasn't there a postmortem? This is 7 people. Was it that important?

[Interpreted] Answer. I would like to take care not to go into further detail with this case. With respect to further payments, those were promised variable remuneration items. And if you already know this, I'm going to explain. This variable component is paid in parts.

There's a point in time where -- in which it's promised, and then the payment takes effect in the course of a number of years. So we had promised. We had an understanding and an agreement with those staff members. And the formal discussion arose with De Nederlandsche Bank. It is this applicable to those promised payments, which is a personal commitment to those staff employees, and that is why we continue those personal payments. And at a certain point in time, we stop them because the Dutch Nederlandsche -- De Nederlandsche Bank had a different opinion.

[Interpreted] Question. Well, what is in the annual report is the truth. There is a small sentence in there with respect to infringements. On the provisions, you are saying now that, that is not the case.

[Interpreted] Answer. This was with respect to a subsidiary of ABN AMRO, which has been finalized, and that has not led to a penalty.

Mr. Van de Bos, you have already asked a question, but I see a gentleman in the front.

[Interpreted] I only have a brief question. Which subsidiary was that?

[Interpreted] Answer. I do not believe that, that is important. I'm fine saying it. We have a number, we'll then say it. These were a couple of subsidiaries and some of them, variable remuneration is paid and others not. Please, next question.

I find this discussion penny-wise but pound foolish. If I look at our Prime Minister, Rob Jetten, EUR 262,000 is what he receives per year. That's a capped payment. But the CEO of ABN AMRO gets more than EUR 2 million. And that is extraordinary in the market situation. If I look at the CEO of KPN, under EUR 1 billion, and he gets EUR 500 million per year.

It's important to look closely at the market. It's also important that ABN AMRO, which was the largest bank in the Netherlands and a worldwide appreciated bank. Unfortunately, ABN AMRO and ING didn't make it together. Otherwise, we would have had a megabank fitting to the market situation.

Now interesting that you are now moving towards a private bank, a private bank for Suriname inhabitants.

May I ask you, we're only talking about remuneration. We're not talking about wealth management or other agenda items. We'll deal with those in a minute.

[Interpreted] Well, but if we look at the remuneration, if we look at the norm of the standard for the Prime Minister, then that's quite, quite a lot. But if we compare it to the market standard, it's not a lot. So penny wise and pound foolish.

[Interpreted] Answer. I'm afraid that, that is not for us to decide, but for others.

Are there any other questions about the remuneration report? If that is not the case, then this is the first agenda item to be put to the vote, and this vote will be conducted electronically. If you vote in favor of this agenda, this means you are in favor of a positive recommendation. If you vote against, this means you're in favor of a negative recommendation regarding the remuneration report.

So the result of the vote is an advisory nonbinding vote. And let me now talk about the issued share capital of ABN MRO and give you the numbers. This is 823,201,264 ordinary shares, of which 823,201,264 are ordinary shares with voting rights. At this meeting, we have, and I'll have to look at this, we have 3,549 shareholders and depository receipt holders present in person or represented. They represent a number of 652,288,972 votes, which means 79.24% of the total number of ordinary shares with voting rights. After the meeting, I'm going to ask everyone to repeat these numbers.

But prior to the meeting, shareholders and depository receipt holders had the opportunity to exercise their voting rights already via e-voting. And these votes are, of course, going to be included in the electronic votes cast during this meeting, and everything will be reflected at the end of the meeting in the voting results. As I already said, participants may cast their votes throughout the entire meeting. The results of the votes will be announced at the end of this meeting.

Now ladies and gentlemen, we will move on to agenda Item 2f, the presentation by the external auditor. And I would like to hand over to Hanneke Overbeek of EY.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for this opportunity to explain our assurance work in relation to the 2025 annual report of ABN AMRO Bank N.V. I'm Hanneke Overbeek, and since 2024, I've been the EY partner with final responsibility for the audit of ABN AMRO.

The content of the financial statements is the responsibility of the management and the Supervisory Board. And the way in which they have already addressed this, in my opinion, provides an accurate representation. My responsibility is the audit of the financial statements, and I will therefore discuss the audit using a number of slides. In addition, I will also briefly discuss our work on the management report, which includes the statement on risk management, the VOR and our work on sustainability reporting. And of course, I'm available to answer any remaining questions regarding the audit after my presentation.

As you will have read in ABN AMRO's report, we've issued 3 statements. One, an audit opinion on the financial statements. You can find this on Page 415 and onwards. Secondly, a report on the sustainability statements as included in the annual report on Page 427 and onwards. And a report on other sustainability information as included in the Strategy and Performance section of the Executive Board report as included in the annual report. You can find this on Pages 424 and onwards.

The audit report was issued by myself. As in previous years, reports on sustainability were issued by my colleague and partner, Remco Bleijs, who is also present here. We adopt an integrated approach with the financial and sustainability auditors collaborate on metrics and disclosures that are overlapping.

For all 3 reports, I would like to walk you through the approach and the key aspects of our audit. What were the key areas of focus? What were our main conclusions? And finally, I shall make a number of concluding remarks, which I believe are relevant to you as shareholders.

Now next to the audit of the consolidated financial statements prepared in accordance with IFRS and as discussed in this meeting, we also review ABN AMRO's quarterly reports. We assess various reports for the regulators and we carry out statutory audits of various subsidiaries of the group and undertake various audit-related engagements. Now as you can see from the overview on this slide, we're involved throughout the year and we also hold formal coordination meetings with the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board every quarter.

Let's look at our audit approach. We determine our audit from a group perspective on what the most important and developments and risks are at consolidated level. And we incorporate these in our approach. And this slide lists the key areas on which we explicitly focus during our audit work in this year. External developments include, for example, geopolitical circumstances, which have already been mentioned, interest rate adjustments and the potential impact they may have on valuations in the financial statements, and they also include the rise in the use of AI in business processes, which may entail new risks in the audit.

Now in 2025, ABN AMRO hadn't applied AI in the process is relevant to the financial statements yet. So we, therefore did not identify any risks in this regard.

Another point requiring clarification is the statement on risk management included in the management report. This statement, which applies for the first time to the 2025 financial year was incorporated by ABN AMRO in the management control statement, which was already included in previous years. Now our role in relationship to the risk management statement is to determine that it is consistent with the financial statements, and that it contains no material misstatements in the light of the knowledge gained during the audit and whether all points were included that are obligatory. We monitor the implementation process. We reviewed the internal support and documentation for the risk management statement. Any observations made in this regard were shared with ABN AMRO and where necessary were followed up as well.

Now next to the attention areas, we also determined the materiality threshold. For the audit of the 2025 financial statements, we set our materiality threshold at EUR 180 million. We report all audit differences exceeding EUR 9 million to the Supervisory Board. The basis for determining materiality are less than 1% of the bank's equity, and this is in line with what we stated in the previous year.

The audit of the Dutch business units was carried out by our Dutch team, the audit work for the units in the U.S., France and Germany was carried out by our local EY colleagues, except for the acquisition of HAL where we engaged a non-EY auditor. We provided our local colleagues and the non-EY auditor with instructions regarding the work to be performed and also discussed and assess the work they carried out, enabling us to take responsibility for the full audit of the consolidated financial statements.

Moreover, we involved a range of specialists in our audit team. Amongst others, experts in the areas of modeling of valuations, and this year, acquisitions, legal and regulatory reporting. If you looked at our audit report, you will have seen that we included 3 key audit matters. And these are: first, loan loss provisions; secondly, other provisions and also disclosures regarding contingent liabilities, including those relating to dividend arbitrage and compliance matters. And thirdly, reliability and continuity of the IT systems, including cybersecurity. In our auditor's report, we included further information on these key points, such as with respect to the risk we identified in these items and the selection of the most significant order procedures we performed as well as our key observations. You will find all of this on Pages 420 to 421 of the annual report.

The risk of fraud and noncompliance. I would like to tell you a little more about these risks and also about the noncompliance with laws and regulations. These are important aspects of our audit, for which we also engage our forensic and legal specialists. Our work was carried out in accordance with the current standards. Now we focus primarily on the policy principles and processes of the bank, such as zero and the work of the compliance and security and integrity management departments of the bank. Furthermore, we hold regular consultations with internal audit, take note of the internal filings from those internal audit reports and discuss with them our mutual risk assessment of the bank and other observations relevant to our work.

In addition, we carry out our own observations, including through targeted data analyses and blind checks, specifically for those items in the financial statements where the nature of the item presents an increased risk of fraud. Examples include the provision for credit losses. Furthermore, we naturally pay attention to the progress of the bank's AML improvement programs as well as the follow-up to other investigations by regulators.

Now next to the audit of the financial statements. As indicated earlier, we've also assessed whether the CSRD sustainability reporting and specific other sustainability information as included in the Strategy and Performance sections of the annual report comply with the applicable international guidelines. Now this means that we determined whether the sustainability reporting, including the double materiality analysis, has been prepared in accordance with the CSRD, ESRS standards and the EU Taxonomy Regulation. Furthermore, we determined whether a number of other sustainable performance indicators correspond to the policy activities, events and performance in the field of sustainability, and whether they are in line with the criteria drawn up by ABN AMRO itself and explained in the Strategy and Performance section. And the latter, please look into examples that include the NPS customer satisfaction scores. We've also determined that these key indicators have been adequately explained.

Furthermore, you'll see that 2 levels of materiality have been determined. The first concerns reporting materiality, which is a qualitative materiality. Here, we assess whether reporting on the material themes is both balanced and comprehensive. And next to that, there is the materiality determined for each performance indicator. As you've read, we've issued unqualified opinions on the financial statements, including the CSRD Sustainability Report and the other sustainability information. And this means that based on the work we've carried out on the financial statements, we have concluded that the items have been correctly recognized and disclosed in the financial statements, and that there are no material audit differences that should have been recorded.

The preparation of financial statements inherently involves management making estimates. I consider it important to note that the estimates made by management in the context of preparing the financial statements have been made in a balanced and consistent manner, and that we have no differences of opinion with management in this matter.

With regard to material aspects of the CSRD sustainability information and other sustainability information, we conclude that this information has been presented fairly. As you will have seen, our report on the sustainability statements includes a paragraph on inherent limitations. Now this paragraph is intended to draw your attention as a shareholder to the inherent limitations related to the assessment or evaluation of sustainability information. This paragraph does not affect our opinion. We've also reviewed the information in the annual report and determined that it does not contain any material misstatements. The results of our work have been discussed with the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board. We do this both in writing via the management letter and the auditor's report and also verbally. Moreover, we confirmed our independence to them on a quarterly basis.

Finally, I would like to inform you that our relationship with the management is open and critical. Our comments and recommendations are discussed, and where necessary, acted upon by management. The recommendations from the management letter are recorded by internal audit, which monitors their implementation. We also have an open and transparent relationship with the Audit Committee and the Supervisory Board.

This, ladies and gentlemen, was our final year. So I'm also in front of you for the last time as external auditors of ABN AMRO. We look back on a good working relationship over the past 10 years. PwC will take over this role from us with effect from 2026, i.e., this financial year. And I can inform you that the transition to them has been thoroughly prepared and has gone smoothly. I and my colleagues wish you every success and pleasurable work in your new role. I would like to thank you all for your trust over the past 10 years in E&Y.

And I now hand the floor over to the Chair.

[Interpreted] And upon this concluding presentation, we marked the end of the term during which EY was our external auditor. And as of 1 January 2026, PwC has taken over. And I would like to thank Hanneke, [ Quiline ], and all their predecessors at E&Y for their excellent cooperation and their rigorous audits of the bank's financial statements over the past 10 years. Thank you very much for the pleasant working relationship.

Ladies and gentlemen, as I mentioned at the previous agenda item, we will now open the Q&A concerning the remaining questions relating to the annual report and our corporate governance. We'll first answer questions we received in advance. We received one question in advance. The question is phrased in English, so I'll read it out in English.

And provide firm reassurance that a shareholder to its shareholders that, first of all, it will preserve the 1.5 degree alignment of its financed emissions sectoral targets. And secondly, it remains committed to achieving the long-term goal of net zero emissions by 2050. [Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] I'll get the floor to Marguerite to answer.

First on the -- first part of the question, are we preserving a 1.5 degrees alignment target on sectoral targets for finance emissions? And yes, I can reassure our shareholders that our sectoral finance emission targets remain in place and that most of the sectoral intensity targets are 1.5 degrees aligned. As set out in our climate ambition, we will continue to steer on the sectoral intensity targets. See, there's no change. At the same time, we are not weakening but strengthening the overall framework by also committing to reduce the Scope 1 and 2 finance emissions of our lending book in line with a well below 2-degree pathway, which serves as an essential backstop to our climate ambition.

The second part of the question, you shared Tom, was all commitment to net zero by 2050. And the answer is yes, again. We remain fully committed to the long-term goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Our position is very clear. We stand firmly behind the goal of Paris. And our approach combined, as I mentioned, continuing to drive progress through sectoral targets, mostly 1.5 degrees aligned, and putting in place the portfolio level backstop well below 2 degrees, while we work towards the development of an absolute finance emission targets for lending.

[Interpreted] Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions?

[Interpreted] I'm Gillian Gailliaert and I work for PGGM. I'm here on behalf of the pension fund for care and well-being. And on behalf of some median participants. I, have 2 questions. One concern, the climate strategy and cyber resilience. My first question is that ABM has indicated that they'll be transitioning from the 1.5 degree commitment to a well below 2-degree commitment as was also discussed, where the bank is introducing a new absolute Scope 3 target. Can you explain why you need to introduce such an absolute target -- Scope 3 target to waive the 1.5-degree commitment although in many sectors, there were already credible transition courses that aligned with the 1.5 degrees.

And my next question is that on Monday, Reuters reported that banks are already talking with European regulators about Anthropic's Mythos because of the potential to reinforce offensive cyber capabilities. My question is twofold, is ABN AMRO also discussing Mythos with regulators and similar threatens? And how is the bank preparing for rising cyber threats that may circumvent traditional defense lines?

You realize that sometimes this gets a little, sometimes technical, and lead to certain misunderstandings. So the bank has not changed its climate strategy in the sense that we have for more carbon-intensive sectors. We have carbon density -- emission density targets that are aligned with the 1.5-degree target, and we don't change. What's important in what I'm saying is a word density, i.e., it's a target that is said, for instance, per unit of products or per million that is financed. And we haven't changed that. And this is what most banks are doing. We have not changed that. But we are going one step further. We are also making a commitment. It's not yet a target. It's a commitment, to be very clear. And the scope is what we call Scope 1 and 2, i.e., this is our loan portfolio. This is where we have the most direct impact, and this is also where we have the most data. So it's Scope 1 and 2 of our loan portfolio. And there, we sort of take a commitment to an umbrella, an umbrella that is aligned with well below 2 degrees. And I do realize it may be a bit tricky to get, but we make it in a way, even harder on ourselves. We -- I mean, we make it even more -- a better commitment because sometimes, you can have a carbon intensity target. You can have a 1.5-degree carbon intensity target and have overall emissions that are above 2 degrees. Because one, -- the first one is a carbon intensity. So if we finance more, hey, our finance emissions are higher, if you see my point. So we go one step further. We have -- the carbon intensity target, we've always had them. This is not changing. And on top of it, we put an umbrella well below 2 degrees. Scope 1 and 2, and it is a commitment, not yet a target when it comes to well below 2. I'm sorry, it's a bit technical, but that's how it works.

So if I understand correctly, your -- for Scope 1 and 2, you already have 1.5 degree...

Carbon intensity.

Yes. And for sectoral Scope 3 -- for your sectoral...

No, no, no. Everything I'm talking about is Scope 1 and 2. And these are sectoral -- carbon intensity are already sectoral target, primarily in our corporate bank. And what I'm talking about with this new umbrella of well below 2, this is an umbrella that will cover basically our loan book, Scope 1 and 2 always, okay? And it's a commitment.

Second point on cyber and Mythos, yes.

On cyber and Mythos, you're right. This is -- I would say this is -- and I'm looking at our CI&TO right there, Carsten Bittner. I can tell you he's on top of it. So it is indeed, I would say, a major concern, not only for the financial industry, but I would say for the world at large and rightfully so. We have consistently, over the years, kept investing in our cybersecurity because trust is the most important asset we have with our clients. So we keep investing. And to your point, I think we all realize that artificial intelligence comes with a lot of opportunities and potential threats. It is -- it goes beyond the financial sector, and I think it certainly calls on also regulators to intervene. Rest assured that on this topic, not only do we monitor very closely the situation, but with Carsten Bittner, with also our CSO, we have very close contact, not only within the financial European and world industry, but also with our supervisors on this topic. It is a very important one, I agree.

[Foreign Language]

Please go ahead.

[indiscernible] and I have 3 questions, but I'll start with a compliment. I am so, so, so incredibly happy to hear that you're setting an absolute target for your whole loan book.

Not a target, a commitment. The worst matter I have Sandra Phlippen, my Chief Sustainability Officer right there. I can tell you that if I say target and not commitment, she's just going to jump. So a commitment, not yet a target.

Not yet a target, but a commitment to set a target, still very, very happy. We've been asked -- we've asked you for years to do that, and it's so happy to see this happening.

My first question is when can we expect a target? When are you going to set a complete -- beside percentage? The climate crisis is quite urgent. So I was hoping to see this soon, of course.

And my second and third question are about your oil and gas portfolio. The first question is we've seen the decline in your oil and gas portfolio over the last years, and we're, again, incredibly happy with this. Just like you're now taking a leading role for banks on setting an absolute target, we believe you can also do this and make it more explicit for your fossil fuel portfolio.

One question is, when are you going to set a commitment to not finance any companies anymore that start new oil and gas fields? At the moment, you only do this for project finance, but not yet for general corporate loans, for capital markets finance and for asset managers. We're hoping to see it there, too. We think that would be an incredible step forward. And I think it's already quite close to what you're doing, but making this explicit would be great.

And the second question is, I've noticed -- the third question is -- third and final question is we've noticed that you set a commitment or target to finance renewable energy with EUR 10 billion in 2030. At the same time, because of the decline that we see in your fossil fuel portfolio, we noticed that you're probably getting quite close to the IED and the IEA target of 1 to 10 -- EUR 1 to fossil fuel is EUR 10 to clean energy. We're wondering if you could make this a commitment or a target as well because, again, this would be great for other banks to see a bank such as you set that example. And I think it's already quite close to your practice.

Thank you. Marguerite?

Thank you very much for your encouragement. And rest assured that I understand your impatience as well. We are a transition bank. This is how we define ourselves. When do we think we can transform this commitment into a target? We want to make sure, and it's not going to be 1 year, I'm sorry to say that. So I would say -- Sandra tells me 3 years, we'll see if it's more, I don't know. But we want to make sure first that we have our data right, okay? But a commitment is important because I think directionally, it tells you where we are going. So -- and I think we are one of the very first to do that in Europe. So it is, I will call it, material directionally. And when we feel we have the right data, when we are comfortable with the data, then we will be able to turn into a target.

You're right, when it comes to oil and gas, our portfolio now, when it comes to new field and so on, this is almost immaterial. I mean, it's a very, very small part of our loan book indeed. And when it comes to renewable energy, again, you're right. I think we are a major player, a very important player in this field. As you know, we have taken the commitment of financing all European transitions. Among these transitions, there is energy, and autonomy of Europe for energy is absolutely crucial. So I can tell you that every time we see a good project, we -- you will see ABN AMRO and you will see us finance it. But it doesn't depend only on us. It depends also on the projects that our clients have. But I can tell you, I see Dan Dorner right in front of me as the Head of our Corporate Bank, and he is very focused on that.

Sorry, I missed the answer to my second and third question, even though it was...

No, the answer is that directionally, we -- this is where we're going, but I'm not making -- the commitments we are making are the one I shared already. We're not making additional commitments today.

[Interpreted] [indiscernible] Please go ahead.

[Interpreted] We all know the Rome report from 1972 and our current target is to restrict the global warming to 1.5 degrees because we're in the Netherlands. And since 1900, the Netherlands has experienced 2.5 degrees of global warming. So this is unusual. In 1973, we also had an oil crisis here. 50 years ago, we learned a lot, but now we have an oil and a gas crisis. Couldn't we do things differently? It would -- wouldn't it be a good idea to become independent from these energy issues, and then we can approach it creatively? And if we look at what happened in 2022 by -- as announced by Robert Swaak, Suriname is a wonderful country, 4x the size of the Netherlands. And a large portion of that is jungle. So we can easily become more sustainable, especially as far as ABN AMRO shareholders are concerned. And then in a few years, we'll be able to drill oil there, and we'll quickly become independent. And the Surinamese will become wealthier and it's nicer for the Surinamese to have a Surinamese Private Bank because many Surinamese would like to return from the Netherlands to Suriname. and we have to streamline this for them. So I think that we can make far more sustainable and also work specifically to redeem our debt of honor just towards Suriname. It's about time. And Suriname is a cheerful Netherlands. So let's make sure that those people have a good life there because now it's EUR 400 a month the average income, and they often pay EUR 5 per cup of cappuccino. So I'd just like to share that with the Board, which has done a lot in Suriname in the past couple of centuries, so it would be nice. And I'm also happy to work together with Laetitia Griffith and [indiscernible] make this a constructive effort. And we could also do this under the ages of the World Nature Fund, ABN AMRO could consider becoming the main sponsor with Suriname as the highlight. So I just wanted to put that for your consideration.

And another point is make your upgrade again. We had a lot of friends such as Russia, China, the United States, and all of a sudden, the world has changed. What's important for Europe and for ABN AMRO are stability and continuity. Well, Ukraine is helping us keep the Russians out. So it's very important for ABN AMRO together with the other major operators in Europe to ensure that those Russians stay out. And support Ukraine as much as possible. And with the network that ABN AMRO has, much can be accomplished. One specific example is 1,500 very clever people need to leave and the Netherlands has to build up its defense industry, and those people could be channeled toward VDL or the Dutch Ministry of Defense, just for your consideration because the defense industry in the Netherlands is excellent. The sky is the limit, and that might work. So that's my question. How can ABN AMRO ensure that the staff is channeled into viable sectors?

And I'd also like to express my compliments to the Chair of the Works Council because she's the only one in the entire Netherlands that speaks on a pleasant note about how things are happening in the company with constructive advice that's unique and is a great benefit with respect to the other companies in the Netherlands.

[Interpreted] Well, I just expressed those compliments, and I'm happy to repeat them because I agree entirely with you, but you didn't mention the other shareholders' meetings.

[Interpreted] Well, I don't often attend those.

[Interpreted] But I do. And this is exemplary conduct. So thank you for this transparency regarding your 2 questions about 2 areas of the world that are entirely exceed the scope of our strategy, which focuses on Northwest Europe and your idea about Suriname. I believe that we -- you can make your point in this area, but it may not go very far. There's little we can do to follow up on this. Please note that the oil that might be found in Suriname is heavy crude like in Venezuela and is the most diluting type of oil possible. So how does this fit in our discussion about transition financing in which we are also involved, aside from the question as to whether in this geographic area where a long time ago, we couldn't have done it 3 centuries ago because we've only existed for 200 years. How could we be active in Suriname 3 centuries ago. I believe entirely that, as I said in my introduction, the people who become redundant here will all find a place in society, whether it's the defense industry or elsewhere, that's up to them. And of course, we help them streamline into other jobs. But to focus entirely on the defense industry does not seem opportune. That's not our task.

[Interpreted] Well, I had expected it reply about Suriname. So why don't you check with the World Nature Fund. There's not a single bank that does that. And ABN AMRO could consider that sponsorship specializing in Suriname.

[Interpreted] I'll convey your suggestion to the people responsible for sponsoring. Over to that end.

[Interpreted] I'm Ronald [indiscernible]. I'm a volunteer at Milio Defense, and this is my fifth time in a row at this meeting. My day job is for an NGO that supports the rights of girls and young women in the Global South. In these regions, they face huge challenges and problems, especially relating to climate change. Even though they hardly contribute to global warming, they're the main victims. And what about the causes? The causes are from the western countries and western companies. And today, I am at one of these Western companies. And that's why my question is which specific requirements does ABN AMRO set its customers to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions?

And my second question is what are the consequences if these customers do not comply?

[Interpreted] Thank you. Marguerite?

Indeed, we engage with all our clients. And these are -- especially our corporate clients, of course. And this is basically understanding the transitions, understanding how we can support them, understanding the targets they set for themselves. And to your point, if we feel that our clients are not committed enough or they are not working to talk, then, and we do it, of course, in a very predictable manner, but we don't hesitate then to reduce the support we bring them and ultimately consider an exit. It's not what we like to do best. We like better to engage and to influence the way, say, this year. But if it's the only option, this is what we do indeed.

[Interpreted] Please go ahead.

[Interpreted] On behalf of the Association of Shareholders, again. First, I'd like to pay you a compliment for your excellent start with new leadership and new energy. Quite honestly, we did not exclude that this might be a transition year, but she hit the ground running with her new refined strategy and especially the proof of the delivery, especially concerning costs and lending models. So that merits a complement.

And at the same time, at ABN AMRO, we have heard this talk and it didn't always come to fruition. And it was beautifully expressed in these CEO introduced strategy, the first 30% and the rest is execution, and that's very aptly put. So we have a few questions about the risks associated with the strategy.

First, about the quality of your earnings. First, if you look at the cost of risk on loans, it's extremely low. It was last year too and the year before that. So my question is how ongoing will that 1 basis point cost of risk be and where we're headed in the coming years? And what will the entire new situation be in the world after the Capital Markets Day, given that the world has changed and they're promising stable island in an uncertain world. If I read the annual report correctly, how robust is that? And that was my first question.

The second concerns the possibility of payments to shareholders and the latitude. Much was promised, but explain the mechanics. I understand that there's a buffer target. We're amply above that. By 2028, we'll probably exceed that considerably as well. We don't know for certain, but the analysts assume so. And you say we'll be distributing a maximum 100% of the profit. So we cannot end up on that buffer target. So how should we understand this idea of growing toward the buffer target? Please elaborate.

My third question concerns the business bank. And I believe it's very right in your strategy for capital to be retrieved from the commercial bank and to be channeled towards Wealth Management and the risk-weighted assets will decline, and that's very rightly so. But if you consider the target of an 11% return on equity by 2028, even if you achieve all those targets, you could wonder whether that's sufficient to get your cost of equity, right, if you have 11% as a commercial bank. So how much can you obtain. And in the strategy review, are -- were any more radical plans considered to run this off faster so that we can see returns faster as well?

And my second -- my next question is about NIBC, which was described as a natural fit. And I believe that you look strategically, then there's a wonderful equilibrium, and we're also very happy that the acquisition was not at an excessive coast -- cost, 0.85 the book value. But then in the quarterly figures, it turned out that this bank is highly exposed in glass fibers in Germany and England, and considerable provisions were taken there to the tune of EUR 40 million, and that amounted to a concerning figure. I'd like your thoughts on this weather perhaps. This is another worry child that you're bringing on to the balance sheet by acquiring NIBC.

And finally, the cost as stated, you've already taken steps there at the same time. This is only the beginning. So what has really changed in the past 4 years? Why should investors be far more confident that you'll achieve those cost benefits? And following up on that, once again, the changing world. I understand that inflation is a major input for cost. I read in the Capital Markets Day that you're assuming 2%, but that's obsolete. I think your economic desk is counting on much higher. And I suppose inflation is much higher, including wage inflation. Are there any other controls you can manage to achieve your cost targets? And if so, which controls are those?

Regarding the last point, if inflation soars, then that will also benefit income, so that the cost/income ratio might not rise substantially. I do realize it will impact cost. But in the strategy, we mentioned a cost-to-income ratio of 55.

[Interpreted] Yes, we certainly appreciate that. But then you're caught between a rock and a hard place. First, you asked 6 questions instead of 3. So I'll ask Marguerite to answer them. And then I'd like to give these other to people on the floor. And then I'd like to move on to the next agenda item.

Thank you for 2 things. It's great to have such a sharp observer and -- of our bank. And also, thank you for your encouragement. This is teamwork, not only from the Ex Board, Supervisory Board, but also for all the people who work at ABN AMRO.

Cost of risk. We gave a guidance at our Capital Market Day that our cost of risk will be through the cycle between 10 to 15 basis points. We are very comfortable with this guidance. We guided towards a lower end of this range through the cycle gradually to 2028. We're still very comfortable with that. This bank has a strong balance sheet, number one.

Number two, yes, indeed, we have a strong capital position. We ended the year with a 15.4 CET1 ratio. Bear in mind, nevertheless, that we still have to pay for NIBC, for the NIBC acquisition that will most likely happen in Q3. This will cost roughly 85 basis points of capital. But yes, over time, we have a good capacity to generate capital. And so yes, we will probably land above the 13.75 target. This is what we said at our CMD. But we also believe we have a very compelling distribution policy, up to 100% of our profit, and that allows us to finance our growth and also to have a good distribution policy to all our shareholders.

With respect to the corporate bank...

Otherwise, just a quick follow-up on the capital allocation. So is my understanding correct that only in 2008, they will be determined what the excess amount of capital is. And then it will be distributed? Or is it -- I just want to understand that...

No. I understand. So what we do is that we assess our capital position at the end of every year at Q4. This is when we determine the perfect capital allocation and distribution policy. We said that we estimated that at the end of 2028, we will be having a CET1 ratio above 13.75. This is the target we set to ourselves. If we end up at a higher level, we'll see. But right now, our commitment is up to 100% of distribution of the net profit we generate every year.

Corporate bank, I think we have a great corporate bank. We have really good teams. We indeed made choices to reallocate capital where we are having the most profitable growth opportunities. So we decided to wind down, for instance, asset-based finance internationally. So that's one example of how we steer on it. Bear in mind however, when you look at the return on equity of each of our business units, that it is, I would say, a simplified way to look at our business model because you don't capture what I call the cross-sell. As I said, many of our clients, our clients as a corporate bank, but also wealth management clients, we finance them for their company, but we -- they also trust us with their assets in Wealth Management. In the Netherlands, 7 out of 10 companies are family owned. So sometimes, we may do business also with the company on the corporate side. The return on equity you get there does not capture the full value that the bank is getting from the relationship. And we are here for the long run. So we take a holistic view of the business we do with our clients.

NIBC, indeed, the purchase price was 0.85x book value. We did very thorough due diligence, of course, on the corporate portfolio. We looked at all the exposures. So we're having no surprises whatsoever, and everything that you've seen in the publication of NIBC over the past quarter was fully anticipated. And no, we are very comfortable with the situation. This was thoroughly checked during our due diligence.

And last but not least, on cost, you're right. This is a marathon. So this is about delivering quarter after quarter. This is about being extremely committed, and I can tell you, we are. Everything we presented at our Capital Market Day was grounded in a business case. So we're very confident with all the targets we shared. And yes, sometimes things happen. Geopolitics is a bit different from what we had last November. Inflation may be higher, we will adapt, and we will meet our targets.

[Interpreted] If I may, 1 quick follow-up.

[Interpreted] No, hold, hold. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I mean, you already had 7 questions. So I'm going over there now.

But I do have some questions for...

[Interpreted] Yes. But -- I'm sorry. Yes. [indiscernible], you do it. Okay. Please, you have the floor.

[Interpreted] I only have one question. I'm [ Leon de Walters ], I work as a sustainability researcher. And I would like to say that on behalf of Milieudefensie, I would like to say that we find it problematic and hope that ABN AMRO follows their climate goals. They have, with respect to reducing emissions, et cetera. We would like to see that the scope of those goals are enlarged. Looking forward to that. But still, we would like to reflect upon the chemical industry and upon food industry. So we believe that sharper or stricter goals are crucial. My question, when is ABN AMRO going to set absolute reduction of emissions goals with respect to chemical industry and other industries?

Question. Again, we have carbon intensity targets for most intensive clients. As I said, too, we are a transition bank. And we are here also to support the real economy. We are also here to support, I would say, the autonomy of Europe, making sure we are mindful of all dependencies because I think we all experience today that the world is not a safer place. And so sometimes thinking, hey, we are not financing this or we're not financing this in Europe. We wake up the next day thinking that we are not in a very safe place. So we try to be pragmatic. We engage with all our clients. We have, especially, of course, in those that are in the more carbon-intensive sectors. As I said, we are on track to meet for most sectors, the 1.5-degree carbon intensity targets we have. And at the same time, we live in the real world and we finance a real economy. And we're a transition bank.

[Interpreted] Your question, please.

[Interpreted] My name is Van Dyke. The targets for 2028 are financial and quantitative. I would like to understand your future view of a geographical scope of the bank. You are in various countries. In one country, you only have one activity. Are you looking to develop other activities? And also, are you planning in the European banking consolidation that we see, are you planning to play a larger role there in an aggressive or more passive form?

And thirdly, are you working on preparations to develop new activities in neighboring countries in Europe? So I would like to understand your future vision of your geographical spread and not only talk about climate and when what to do, what.

[Interpreted]. Marguerite?

Thank you very much for your excellent question. So our footprint or geographic footprint is very clear. Our roots are in the Netherlands. This is our home country. For wealth management and our commercial bank activities, we play in Northwestern Europe. So for instance, in Germany, where we recently made the acquisition of HAL, we are a strong #3 player in Wealth Management, and our ambition is to be in the top 5. We also have in Wealth Management activities in Belgium, but also in France with Neuflize. And our corporate bank is active throughout with Northwestern Europe. We also have, with our clearing activities, our clearing bank, a global footprint. So there we present all over the world, from the U.S. to the APAC region. And there, we play in the top 3 in the world. When it comes to European consolidation. First, we are very much focused right now in making a success of the 2 recent -- I mean, of the acquisition of HAL and of the acquisition, we still have to close of NIBC that will probably happen at Q3. Because M&A is one thing, making a success of the integration is extremely important and requires focus and dedication. You indeed read a lot about European consolidation in the papers. Right now, the way we see it, because the banking union is a very imperfect union yet. It's at cross-border mergers are rarely productive and successful. But because the banking union today is a very imperfect banking union still.

[Interpreted] But you don't have a list in your drawer with potential candidates.

[Interpreted] I don't believe Mrs. Berard said anything about lists.

[Interpreted] She doesn't have to read them out, but it would be a good idea to understand whether their eyes are -- your eyes are open.

[Interpreted] Obviously, the Executive Board and the Supervisory Board are in constant discussion about options, about opportunities, about what we want to assess, what we don't. This is a continuous process that you can expect from the management of a bank.

[Interpreted] I understand. But I can also understand that in the mid- and long-term vision, you are looking into the situation in neighboring countries and looking into mainland or homeland elsewhere, a second one.

[Interpreted] If you look at Germany, and we're in the third position in private banking, we have a strong presence there. So there we are, what you are suggesting, we are taking good steps, but not in other areas of retail banking, et cetera.

[Interpreted] Well, not necessarily. Well, I'm going to keep my curiosity alive.

[Interpreted] Over to the other side.

[Interpreted] My name is Juan Sandoval. I am representing the interests of my grandchildren. And therefore, I would like to talk about the climate ambition of ABN AMRO, the 1.5 degrees. We heard from Mrs. Berard, a lot of hopeful, hopeful things. If you look at the annual report of 2025 and I compare that to the annual report of 2024, I see very striking changes. 2024, the focus was on restricting temperature increase by 1.5 degrees, the further development of sectoral topics and a quick decrease in 2030. Departing from the expectation of emissions in 2030 being important for general temperature increase. But 2025 shows us a hard goal changing into an ambition and more transitional interests of clients being followed and capital allocating that there where return is highest. So climate isn't anymore a leading goal, but just one of the factors. 1.5 degrees isn't described as a realistic goal, but as something the bank strives to achieve because your analysis says the world isn't on the line of 1.5 degrees only, but it's diverging to a higher increase. My question, why did your analysis not lead to activities that make the goal of 1.5 degrees more realistic? Why are you weakening that goal rather?

Second question, based on what Ms. Berard just explained, because it was a very hopeful explanation that there are a lot of advancements and a lot of commitments. Are we, in this year, going to see a further move in that respect, but more towards the goal of 1.5 degrees? And I'm restricting my questions to the restriction of temperature increase.

So I reiterate what we committed to. The bank is indeed, I would say, taking more demanding steps. So we have -- we are not changing. We are not changing. So 1.5 degrees carbon intensity targets that we had and that were sectorial. This is not changing.

[Interpreted] In your financial report 2025, we do see a move.

No. I can assure you there is not. What you -- what you want to see is that -- the Paris agreement has always been, if you read the Paris agreement, of a trajectory well below 2 degrees, thriving to 1.5. We have taken sectorial targets with a 1.5-degree intensity. And there, we are achieving these targets for most of our sectors, most of all sectors, and we are not deviating. What we are doing in addition, and I don't think there are many banks in Europe who are making this commitment, is to strive to have this umbrella over our entire credit book, Scope 1, Scope 2 of limitation of well below 2 degrees. So this is what we are sharing today. So this is not us doing less. This is us doing more, and I don't think many banks are doing so in Europe or elsewhere in the world. And we also shared at our CMD. You see it in our annual report that, of course, we see ESG as one of the key enablers of our bank, the 4 key enablers of our bank. And this has not -- this is a very strong commitment we have. This has not changed. And we cater for all our stakeholders, and I find it very important. So yes, we will see profitable growth, and this is something we do. And at the same time, we also are a transition bank financing climate transition in Europe, yes.

[Interpreted] I'm very curious to read the annual report of next -- of this year.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. Last question by Mr. Van de Bos -- we'll leave it out -- sorry.

[Interpreted] My name is [indiscernible]. I'm a Director of the Association for Shareholders for Sustainable Development. We have a couple of questions, only 3, by the way. I would like to discuss sustainability. ABN AMRO has a very good route with respect to sustainability. But we've also seen that sustainability is embedded differently, more anchored in operational processes. But some organizational departments have disappeared, such as your Sustainability Center of Excellence and other areas. And then possibly, the idea is that sustainability is anchored and has become mainstream, but we are concerned that this is being outsourced, specifically with the reduction in personnel. How can you retain your sustainability course?

Secondly, a livable wage as a topic. With your platform on livable wage for financials. Last year, we had a promise more or less that you would stick to the definition by the international labor organization. And now it seems like this topic doesn't even exist, or at least I couldn't find it in your annual report.

And then we have something about pollution, which is another topic for us. We've seen that in 2024, you express ambitious goals. But now you're saying that this isn't a material topic anymore, even though there are a lot of polluters amongst your clients, too. Is it possible that further reports are going to be issued? Or are any reports going to be issued about that? Or is this topic just disappearing? Those are my questions.

Thank you very much for your questions. First, yes, the bank has a very good foundation and maturity in sustainability. This is why we felt comfortable not only to have central teams, but to make sure that sustainability is embedded in the way we do business. So yes, we have a central team headed by Sandra Phlippen, who is right behind you in the yellow dress. You may -- and I'm sure she will be happy to. So we have a central team responsible for the entire bank. And at the same time, and we have also sustainability officers in all of our business units. At the same time, our purpose is to make sure that we embedded the sustainability, where we have the most impact in our projects, in the way we do business in our clients, in the way we help our clients refurbish their homes, for instance. So we want to do concrete and impactful things. This is what we think we do best. We are bankers, first and foremost. And so we -- sustainability as part of -- by design in the way we do business. That explains our reorganization.

You had also -- with respect to your question with pollution, and that's probably because you don't see the theme of pollution as part of a double materiality assessment. The fact that -- following CSRD assessment, pollution is not considered a double materiality topic because materiality topic answers very clear criteria in terms of impact on our balance sheet and so on. It does not mean that it doesn't matter for the bank. It is a very different topic. One is how you report under CSRD, and the other one is how we engage with our clients. So typically, when it comes to production, when we discuss with clients into the chemical industry, in the agricultural business and so on, we do discuss this topic as well. So the fact that it's not part of the double materiality assessment upon CSRD, it doesn't mean that the bank doesn't care about it.

And with respect to labor commitments. So we have indeed in our supplier code, very clear requirements in how we engage with our suppliers in terms of decent living for their employees. And this is part of the dialogue we have with all our suppliers. We also, however, and I know the ILO definition, but we also have to recognize that under -- in all countries, all jurisdictions, this is not necessarily a recognized definition. So we use this definition as part of our dialogue with our suppliers. This is how we can -- we can have an impact, and this is how we act, yes. Thank you.

[Interpreted] As last question, please, Mr.?

[Interpreted] Let me refer to one of the slides where we see that fee income rises and interest rates go down. Now we've been working in the financial sector for quite a while. But shouldn't be the other way around that the bank makes more profit based on interest rates, the non fees?

And another point, oh, NIBC. As I've understood it, NIBC was out for sale for 10 years. And I'm always a bit reluctant. Whenever I see something that's too good to be true, I'm always reluctant. Wasn't this a warning?

Then another point with respect to the mortgage portfolio. It's quite well known that a lot of foundations of residential homes in the Netherlands are not strong enough or too poor in certain areas. Does ABN AMRO have an eye on that? In the vicinity of a little town called Blaricum, houses are built on sand. You don't need the foundations there.

And then my final question, where is it? The sales of Alfam. Alfam was hung out for sale for more than 15 years by ABN AMRO. And were you able to book some profit there? And the follow-up question is, when customers of ABN AMRO make a request for a personal loan, are they then sent on to a Rabobank subsidiary in Eindhoven?

And I have one more question, always for the auditor. This is about the management letter. A number of material topics or matters, have they increased or not? And the most important points, how many of them were implemented by the management?

[Interpreted] Now the first point, I believe all banks are looking at the costs on capital and the risks of interest income, they look more to fee income than to interest income. That's valid for most banks and also for ABN AMRO. This is quite a clear development where the costs -- the capital costs of RWA are high, the banks then turn to fee income more and more.

Then NIBC has been waiting to be sold for 10 years. I can guarantee you that our due diligence was very, very thorough. And a very clean bank remained, specifically with respect to the mortgage portfolio, and we looked into that very thoroughly. Otherwise, NIBC is relatively -- I mean, because we've taken them over, you can't say that about a competitor, of course, was a quite simple bank with an understandable risk profile. Of course, risk management under the leadership in our bank has looked at their mortgage portfolio also from the viewpoint of foundations and the location of homes with mortgages, and we include that in the assessments before financing take place.

Then I would like to ask Marguerite to answer Alfam.

So for Alfam. No, Alfam has not been on sale for 15 years. Definitely this is a discussion we had along with the strategic plan last year only. And we will, of course, continue to make sure that our clients have access to all products, as they will be referred to another company under a different name, but we will make sure that if our clients want a product, they can be best served, yes.

Sorry, that was also asked. It's not a book profit. We disclosed early... [Foreign Language]

[Interpreted] Sorry, please say that in English. This was announced in our disclosures that we expected a book loss of around EUR 100 million. But at the same time, of course, it provides a benefit with respect to capital release. Yes, exactly.

[Interpreted] A question about the fee. Can I get back to that? I'd asked a question for associations with high cost -- the high banking costs that are invoiced. The answer was money laundering, et cetera. I still find it strange that you hear something different from one part of the bank and from another part of the bank. Here, I hear credit coverage, et cetera. Of course, money laundering has to be tackled centrally because that will make a difference of EUR 3 billion per year.

[Interpreted] I think this is question for Mr. -- for the minister. All I can do is indeed support your point, that we need to check on anti-money laundering measures. But all of that has nothing to do with fee income or interest income.

[Interpreted] I had a question for the auditor, which hasn't been answered. Yes, there you are. You're a bit older than I am so not taking this personally.

[Interpreted] You can take it personally. I don't care that much, to be honest.

[Interpreted] Now [ Hanneke ], the material issues in the management letter, were there more than in previous years and how many were implemented?

[Interpreted] With respect to the management letter, all matters that we include there are relevant to my mind. And I don't make any differentiation in which are -- which way heavier than others. What we've seen is that the number of matters have reduced, have decreased. So the management has placed attention on the points that we have put forward. Some of the matters concern long-term strategic programs, that is why certain matters haven't been resolved yet, but they have been addressed, and I am very confident about the progress made there. Thank you.

[Interpreted] Ladies and gentlemen, we will move on now to point 2g in the agenda, which is adopting the financial report of 2025. I would like to refer to the financial statements as included in our annual report, which have been audited by the external auditor. This has been explained, and they've issued an unqualified audit opinion.

Are there questions? No questions have been received, which is -- no questions in the room either. So I will now continue because we're a bit pressed for time. The adoption of the 2025 financial statements is put to the vote. Voting can take place electronically. Participants may cast their votes throughout the meeting. Shareholders here, obviously, the results of the vote will be announced at the end of the meeting.

Onwards to 3 and 3a, reserve and dividend policy. I'd like to propose that we go through these points 3a and 3b in one go. After that, you have the opportunity to ask questions about 3.

I'll hand over to Marguerite now.

Thank you very much, Tom. So this is a point we already touched a point, but basically during our Capital Market Day in November, we presented an updated capital framework and distribution policy. We have, therefore, an updated capital target to above 13.75%, in line with the changed regulatory requirements, mainly related to interest on the mortgages impact in our Pillar 2 requirement.

Our updated distribution policy allows us to pay up to 100% of our net profit in a combination of cash dividend and share buybacks, with at least 50% of the net profit in cash dividend. We will, as I mentioned, evaluate our capital position on an annual basis. And of course, we intend to disclose the outcome of this assessment every year with our Q4 results.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Marguerite. That takes us to 3b, the dividend proposal. And once again, Marguerite Berard has the floor.

So in line with our capital framework and distribution policy, ABN AMRO proposes a final cash dividend of EUR 0.70 per share. This is on top of the EUR 0.54 per share cash dividend, we have paid out after 2025 Q2 results, the additional euro -- I mean an additional, I'm sorry, EUR 250 million dividend payment that we've made and the 2 share buyback programs that we announced. So all in all, it means that for 2025, our total payout ratio is 87% of our net profit.

[Interpreted] Thank you. No questions were received in advance about this item. Are there any questions from the floor, there are none this agenda item is. Also a voting item and the result of the vote will be announced at the end of this meeting. Now on to Item 4, on the Agenda, which is granting discharge. Agenda Items 4A and B, the proposal to grant discharge to individual members of the Executive Board in office during the 2025 financial year for the performance of their duties in 2025.

No questions were received in advance about this agenda item. Are there any questions from the floor? There are none. This is a voting item, and once again, the results will be disclosed at the end of this meeting. Now on Item 4B, which is the discharge of the individual members of the Supervisory Board in office during the 2025 financial year performance of their duties during 2025. Are there any questions from the floor? Yes, please go ahead.

I'm Jasper Jansen from the VEB. I always read the annual report with fascination, especially the interview with you, Mr. de Swaan. I entirely agree that you're ending your turn at an upbeat note, so with optimism, but you're also mentioning that ABN AMRO has quite a bit of work ahead of it, referring to recent acquisitions as well as [indiscernible] new initiatives, cost cutting, optimizing capital. Are you worried that there might be too much work ahead? And my second question concerns the anti-money laundering systems. Quite honestly, I thought that lay behind us. But in the contingencies, I read that there is still some unresolved issues, and we're awaiting approval from De Nederlandsche Bank on these issues, and there may be some enforcement actions. How serious is this risk?

Regarding your first question, if the Supervisory Board believed that the Executive Board had a lot on its plate, then we would have intervened. We do not believe that. As I said in the interview, our task is ambitious, and we aim to be ambitious and the Executive Boards major decisions to be taken, for example, implementing the strategic targets for 2025 and integrating acquisitions as well as bonds such as well all in NIBC. But the Supervisory Board that you're addressing your question to believe that the current management merits the full trust of the Supervisory Board and implementing this.

Of course, the Supervisory Board will monitor this closely and will not wait until the end of 2028 to see whether they were successful. No, the Supervisory Board will monitor the speed and intensity at which the Executive Board will elaborate the strategic targets and apply them. As for the AML matter, I cannot see inside the confines of De Nederlandsche Bank and perhaps these are famous last words, but we don't expect enforcement actions.

Are there any other questions. If not, then I find that there are no questions, and this is also a voting item. Now, let me see to make sure that I didn't make any -- I didn't skip anything now to report on the performance at the external auditor, and I'm pleased to give the floor to Sarah Russell, who chairs the Audit Committee. She will outline the key findings arising from the annual evaluation of the external auditor's performance.

Thank you, Tom. Similar to previous years, we performed a survey with our most important and relevant internal managers and management body, including Executive and Supervisory Board members who work with the external auditor in order to see how the auditor service is experienced on crucial aspects. This poll gives a fair picture of how this service is seen within ABN AMRO as a whole, including subsidiaries. The overall score of 3.9 on a 5-point scale has further improved compared to last year's evaluation, which was 3.7, and represents a good score. These results confirm that the expectations of the external auditor are being met in all respects.

Although also on a satisfactory level, opportunities for further improvement on a few aspects were noted, including the timely discussion of findings and the translation of observations into concrete actions, effective and efficient exchange of information and visibility of innovation in the audit approach also at subsidiary level. These opportunities will be taken into account by the new external auditors at PwC. I would like to emphasize once again that it is very important that EY is consistently seen as sufficiently objective and independent to be able to adequately challenge management, which clearly is the case and that they are also adding value on new requirements around, for example, the new statement on risk management, the so-called 4.

EY has now transferred its external audit assignment on ABN AMRO to PwC after being 10 years our external auditor. Annika Overgaauw is the lead partner in the ABN AMRO audit since 2024, and she has fulfilled that role of adequately. We are confident that PwC will be able to continue the external audit assignment at a similar level as EY did. Overall, for EY, a high score of 3.9 in their last year gives satisfaction. As the score even further improved while being already on an adequate level for several years, we thank EY for their good and professional services during the last 10 years, and also for the smooth and diligent transfer to PwC during 2025.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Sarah. No questions were received in advance. Are there any questions from the floor? There are none. Thank you. Now we will continue with Item 6 on the agenda, that is the composition of the Supervisory Board. According to the Supervisory Board scheduled rotation, the current term of Sarah Russell and my term will end at the end of this General Meeting, this will create 2 vacancies on the Supervisory Board. Profile outlines have been drafted for both vacancies and included as meeting documents. Sarah Russell has indicated that she is happy to stand for a new term as a Supervisory Board member, and we welcome that. I will not be available for a new term.

Therefore, the Supervisory Board has already selected a new Chair from among it's members at the close of this meeting, I will hand over this Chairmanship to Michael, you see a lot at my left before I give you the opportunity to ask questions or make comments, let's move on to Agenda Item 6B and C, the opportunity for the General Meeting to make recommendations, taking into account the aforementioned profiles and the explanation by the Employee Council. To date, ABN AMRO has not received any substantiated recommendations from the General Meeting of shareholders for the aforementioned vacancies.

I, therefore, assume that the General Meeting does not wish to exercise its right to make recommendations, but I'm happy to give the General Meeting the opportunity to do so to ask questions or to make comments on this agenda item. No questions were received in advance. Are there any questions from the floor? There is one, Mr. Van de Bos. I missed you for a moment. How is that possible?

Your age. No, it cannot be your age and not your size, no, you do not miss that. First, I'm happy that Mr. Russell will be staying on. And my second comment, are there any candidates? Well, I knew an excellent candidate, but that candidate is now in Singapore and has become CEO of a large umbrella banking corporation, I don't want to mention any names.

I have no idea who you mean that would have been a perfect addition to this bank. Well, thank you. Are there any other questions?

Yes, I have a brief question. I was wondering whether any other Supervisory Board members wanted to become the Chair?

An excellent question. Well, it's not my call. I don't select the Chairs. So, I assume there was nobody else. Next, we will move on to Agenda Item 6C, which is the Employee Council's position on the proposed reappointment and the appointment of Jean-Pierre Mustier, the Supervisory Board asked the Employee Council to adopt a position concerning the proposed reappointment of Sarah Russell and the appointment of Jean-Pierre Mustier. Regarding both nominations, the Employee Council gave a positive recommendation and both have been included in the documents for the General Meeting, the Employee Council has indicated that it will not be elaborating on its position at the General Meeting.

That takes us to 6D, which is the reappointment of Sarah Russell. As you will have read in the convening notice, Sarah Russell is being nominated for reappointment based on her experience and her professional knowledge, and administrative positions in accounting and risk management. As a member of the Supervisory Board, she brings to their extensive experience as a Supervisory Board member and highly relevant experience as such as well.

Let me mention the objective of the Supervisory Board in terms of gender diversity. It's been included that with female members or at least 1/3 of the members of the Supervisory Board. And we aim to do justice to this in part by reappointing Sarah. And this objective has to great joy amply been met. So the Supervisory Board proposes reappointing Sarah at the close of this meeting for a 4-year term ending at the Annual General Meeting in 2030, the Supervisory Board is convinced that with the proposed reappointment, the Board composition will be such that the Supervisory Board can continue to perform its duties adequately. Are there any questions? Yes, Mr. Van de Bos.

I have you 1 page on the agenda concerning Mr. Mustier. I hope I pronounced the name correctly.

That's the next agenda item. We're talking about reappointing Mrs. Russell now.

Okay. So I got ahead of things.

As usual, you got ahead of things I'll bear with you. I note that there are no questions regarding this agenda item that takes us to 6E, which is the appointment of Jean-Pierre Mustier as member of the Supervisory Board, and the nomination of Jean-Pierre Mustier follows a thorough recruitment and selection. His profile is exceptionally well-suited to the role requirements and collective expertise of the Supervisory Board. He is a highly experienced senior executive with an impressive career in financial services. Throughout his career, he has demonstrated strong leadership, strategic insight, and the ability to cope with complex challenges.

His expertise in digital transformation, innovation and technology-driven governance is a great value, particularly in the context of ABN AMRO's ongoing focus to keep pace with technological trends while ensuring compliance and risk management.

For additional information, please see Jean-Pierre Mustier's CV, which is included in the meeting documents. On the reappointment of Sarah Russell and appointment of Jean-Pierre Mustier, 57% of the Supervisory Board seats will be held by women, 43% by men.

The gender diversity target, as stated at the previous agenda item, therefore, remains comfortably achieved. Jean-Pierre generally looked forward to being here in person today. However, due to long-standing commitments that he was unable to reschedule, to his regret, this was not possible. And he asked me to convey the sincere regret that he cannot meet you in person. As he would still very much like to address you, he has recorded a brief video message in advance in which he introduces himself and shares his thoughts on the role ahead of him. Thank you for understanding. Please listen to his message now and please read the subtitles.

[Presentation]

Due to a prior commitment, but I am very pleased to address you and to share a few words. Let me briefly introduce my background. I started my career at Societe Generale, where I can spent approx 2 decades in a range of leadership role, including hedging, corporate, and investment banking, and later, asset management, private banking, and securities services. These experiences gave me a strong foundation across capital markets, client businesses, and risk management. I then joined UniCredit initially as Deputy General Manager in charge of Corporate and Investment Banking, and later returned as Chief Executive Officer from 2016 to 2021.

During this period, the bank underwent a profound transformation with a strong focus on restoring profitability and trust. More recently, I have had a number of Board and leadership roles across financial services and technology, including Chairman of the European Banking Federation. I also serve today as Chairman of Aareal Bank and as a member of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Borse. So, why ABN AMRO? What particularly attracts me is its clear strategic positioning. A focused client-centric bank with strong domestic growth combined with disciplined capital allocation and a commitment to sustainable value creation.

In the European banking sector that continues to evolve, clarity of strategy and consistency of execution are critical and ABN AMRO has demonstrated both. I am also very supportive of the bank and [indiscernible] on responsible banking, re-discipline and long-term client relationships. These are not only values, but also clear competitive advantages in today's environment.

My motivation to join the Supervisory Board is therefore twofold: First, I believe that I can contribute my experience in transformation, capital allocation, and risk management, particularly in complex environment. Second, I am deeply committed to the European banking sector and its role in financing the economy. If appointed, my objective will be to bring an independent, constructive, and long-term perspective to the Supervisory Board work, supporting the Executive Board while ensuring strong governance and strategic discipline. Thank you for your attention.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Jean-Pierre. The Supervisory Board proposes appointing Jean-Pierre Mustier as a Supervisory Board member from the end of this meeting for a 4-year term ending at the close of the 2030 Annual General Meeting. This Agenda Item is a voting item. The result of the vote will be announced at the end of the meeting. No questions were submitted in advance. Are there any questions from the floor? Yes, Mr. [indiscernible].

Will the next meeting be conducted in English or in French? Or will we continue in Dutch.

I assume that we will continue in Dutch, and there will be an exemption for those who express themselves better in English. I know that the CEO is working very hard to master Dutch and at a certain point, perhaps by next year, she'll be able to introduce yourselves in Dutch. I won't be there anymore. So the meeting is in Dutch, but conceivably some members some of who speak won't be sufficiently proficient in Dutch, and then it's better for everybody if they speak English rather than fluent Dutch. Well, the foundation of the ABN is a Dutch trading company. The Nederlandsche bank was established later. That was founded under King William I of the Netherlands.

But if I -- Mrs. Berard is learning Dutch from Nonnen van Vught, if I understand correctly. That's my other question.

Well, I don't think you should ask how Mrs. Berard is learning Dutch. I know she's very busy learning it. Or are you teaching her? No, because we speak English or French with each other. I was teasing you. Thank you. Next, if there are no additional questions about the appointment of Mr. Mustier. Let's move on to Item 7, which is the Executive Board composition. 7A is the announcement of the proposed reappointment Dan Dorner as Executive Board member as Chief Commercial Officer on a Corporate Banking. And Dan Dorner's term of office expires at the end of this meeting. He has demonstrated strong leadership and consistent performance as Chief Commercial Officer of Corporate Banking.

His broad experience enables him to continue to contribute effectively to the Executive Board in the future. We're delighted that Dan is willing to extend his first term as CCO Corporate Banking by an additional 4 years. The Supervisory Board, therefore, notifies the general meeting of the proposed reappointment of Dan Dorner. His new term will commence at the conclusion of this meeting and will end at the close of the 2030 General Meeting.

Next 7B is the envisaged reappointment of Mrs. Choy van der Hooft-Cheong as an Executive board member in the role of Chief Commercial Officer Wealth Management. Her term, also lapses at the end of this meeting, and she has also demonstrated strong leadership and a consistent ability to deliver meaningful results. And we're delighted that she is willing to accept an extension of her term and thereby notifying the proposed reappointment of Mrs. Choy. Her new term will end at the conclusion of this General Meeting in 2030 and last but not least, notification of the proposed reappointment of Annerie Vreugdenhil as an Executive Board member in the role of Chief Commercial Officer, Personal & Business Banking.

Her term also expires at the end of this meeting, and she is willing to serve another term and the Supervisory Board is delighted that Annerie is willing to extend her first term by a second one. And her reappointment is supported by her contributions to ABN AMRO's strategic objectives and her ability to manage complex portfolios effectively. We, therefore, inform the General Meeting of the proposed appointment of Annerie Vreugdenhil and her term will also lapse after the end of the General Meeting in 2030. In these reappointments, we consider Diversity and Inclusion objectives including gender diversity and other D&I aspects that are relevant for ABN AMRO. The Employee Council has indicated in the convening notice has issued a positive recommendation for all 3 reappointments. Are there any questions about this? If not, then I congratulate the 3 concerned persons on their reappointments.

Now on to a technical item, the cross-border merger of ABN AMRO and Hauck Aufhauser Lampe because the application of reference provisions for employee participation in the context of the merger with Hauck Aufhauser Lampe Bank are required following the acquisition of HAL, ABN AMRO intends to merge HAL, Asset Management its fully owned subsidiary, Lampa, Asset Management, GMBH with ABN AMRO with the activities being assigned to the Frankfurt office. This is an important step towards efficiently integrating HAL's operations and staff within ABN AMRO and the ABN AMRO Group.

This will create the third-largest German bank in wealth management and will significantly expand ABN AMRO's geographical presence in Germany. Germany is ABN AMRO's second-largest market. HAL and subsequently LAM will merge with ABN AMRO Bank through a cross-border legal merger. HAL and subsequently, LAM will then cease to exist in its legal entities, while ABN AMRO will continue to exist. ABN AMRO bank now holds 100% of the shares in HAL, and indirectly also in LAM.

The cross-border merger is a complex legal process requiring several steps. One is to determine the employee participation arrangements that will apply following the merger. About -- this will take place today. German employee participation rights exist within HAL and this -- as a result of the merger, HAL's Supervisory Board will cease to exist and employee representatives have the right to appoint 1/3 of the members of our HAL Supervisory Board. Consequently, the employees of HAL and LAM will no longer be able to appoint their Supervisory Board members. Given the proposed merger negotiations must take place regarding the employee participation arrangements to apply after the merger. These negotiations would then take place with employee representatives from all countries within Europe where ABN AMRO has operations.

These negotiations will take 6 months with a possible additional 6-month extension. No agreement is reached. The statutory reference provisions will apply. These negotiations need not be conducted if the shareholders of both merging parties decide that the reference provisions apply voluntarily. In this case, the reference provisions stipulate that the ABN AMRO's large company regime will be maintained. ABN AMRO operates under the large companies regime, whereby the works council has a recommendation for all Supervisory Board members and an enhanced recommendation right for 1/3 of the members of the Supervisory Board. The Employee Council also has the rights to be consulted on the appointment or dismissal of Supervisory Board members.

The current employee participation rights at ABN AMRO made their role will be maintained by applying the standard rules and applying these ensured that employees working in Germany after the merger will have the same status as employees at ABN AMRO's French and Belgian branches. The merger will not be -- the actual merger will not be voted on today. This agenda item concerns the question as to which employee participation arrangements will apply after the merger to avert a lengthy and seemingly unnecessary negotiated process.

It seems appropriate in this case to have the General Meeting to waive the negotiation voluntarily apply the reference positions. Are there any questions about this? There are none. Then we will now move on to Item 9. These are evergreens relating to issuance and purchase of shares.

[Interpreted] Now the first of them is the issuance of shares, repurchase of shares, depository receipts for shares, as well to exclude pre-emptive rights to repurchase shares or depository receipts as well. So the Executive Board is proposed in the following with the approval of the Supervisory Board to replace the authorization granted by the General Meeting at its meeting on 23 April, 2025, for a period of 18 months with the new authorizations proposed under agenda Item 9A, 2C. And these authorizations will give ABN AMRO flexibility; they can act swiftly should circumstances require any issuance or repurchase of shares or depository receipts.

Our agenda item 9 comprises 3 sub-items, and I would like to propose to go through them in one go, 9A to 9C. Afterwards, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions with respect to Agenda Item 9 as a whole. Let's start with 9A. The proposal is to authorize the Executive Board, with effect from today and for a period of 18 months, to issue ordinary shares, excluding Class B ordinary shares; and secondly, to grant rights to subscribe for such ordinary shares up to a maximum of 10% of ABN AMRO's issued share capital as of today's date. This will only happen with authorization of the Supervisory Board.

And furthermore, we also propose to authorize the restriction or exclusion of pre-emptive rights also again under the authorization and approval of Supervisory Board because today, more than half of the issued share capital is represented, your meeting may decide on the proposal by a simple majority. Moving on to 9C, the proposal to authorize the repurchase of shares or depository receipts for shares in ABN AMRO's own share capital. Now this proposal is to authorize the Executive Board with effect from today and for period of 18 months, to repurchase fully paid-up ordinary shares in ABN AMRO's own share capital or depository receipts for shares via the stock exchange or by other means.

For the sake of clarity, this does not apply to ordinary B shares. Here, too, the Executive Board may only exercise this authorization with the approval of the Supervisory Board. A repurchase of shares or depository receipts in ABN AMRO's share capital for example, take place for the purpose of restructuring our capital reduction, including return of capital to the shareholders and/or depository receipt holders. This will only take place if existing and future solvency requirements of supervisory authorities are met and continue to be met thereafter.

The price per share or depository receipt purchased in the share capital of ABN AMRO must be at least equal to the nominal value of the ordinary shares and at most equal to 110% of the highest price at which the depository receipts were traded on Euronext Amsterdam on the transaction date or the preceding trading day. If granted, this authorization supersede authorization granted by the General Meeting of 23 April, 2025.

No questions from the floor, then we will move on to Item 10, which is the cancellation of shares or depository share receipts in the issued share capital of ABN AMRO. It is proposed in the General Meeting that on the proposal of the Executive Board and subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board and of the ECB and other relevant supervisory authorities, to resolve, cancel and fully paid-up ordinary shares or a portion thereof of ABN AMRO's own share capital have been acquired by ABN AMRO via the stock exchange or through the repurchase of own shares or depository receipts pursuant to the authorization granted under 9C.

The foregoing does not apply to ordinary B shares. The cancellation of the repurchased own shares shall be limited to 10% of the outstanding share capital of ABN AMRO on the date of this General Meeting and is permitted for a period of 18 months following the date of this General Meeting. Any questions? No. Now, this was the final agenda item on which you may cast your vote. The opportunity for participants in this meeting to cast their votes will close in only a few movements. Now at the end of the meeting, following the question-and-answer session, the voting results will be announced. We will now continue with Any Other Business. Any questions please. Mr. Van de Bos?

Mr. de Swaan, I would like to thank you for so many years of service as a Chair of the Supervisory Board of ABN AMRO. We weren't always of one opinion, but we always had good discussions, and I would like to thank you for that.

Thank you, Mr. van de Bos, thank you for your words. Well, having said that we're at the end of our meeting and my role as the Chair of this wonderful institution has come to an end. Even though we had difficult times, such as COVID where I was seated here and Robert was sitting at the other end of the table and no one else was able to attend and we have to take very difficult decisions with respect to all sorts of topics. I executed my task as a Chair with a lot of pleasure. And the pleasure included the contact with our shareholders with the larger ones and also with the smaller ones. That contract was quite challenging. I can say that out loud now because they often came forward with questions that were surprising. And questions to which you didn't know the answer in certain cases immediately, and I'm very thankful to all of the shareholders because you keep us focused.

In my modest opinion, I leave a bank that stands strong with a very engaged and dedicated management team and a very strong Supervisory Board. I will transfer my Chair to my colleague and good friend, Michiel Lap, with a lot of trust and confidence. And of course, I will follow all developments within the bank with very much interest. I wish you all the best. And if you have the time, I would like to invite you to the reception that will take place in a minute because I understand that he wants to say something; I hand over to him.

For a moment, I worried that Mr. van de Bos would steal the show. Dear shareholders, coworkers, and guests, it's my privilege to be officially closing the meeting later on. On behalf of the Supervisory Board and on my own behalf, I am honored to say a few words about a leader whose impact will resound for many years at our bank, and that's our Chair from the past 8 years, Tom de Swaan. In 2018, you took on this role at a point when both the world and the bank faced major challenges. Since then, you have run the Supervisory Board and this organization with a firm hand, and an astute mind, and just as important, a warm heart.

Your leadership was tried and tested during the COVID-19 pandemic, as you mentioned as well as the energy crisis and the current turbulent geopolitical and economic and security throughout those periods, your [indiscernible] wisdom has been an ongoing source of inspiration. During your chairmanship, ABN AMRO regained it's reputation among our customers, investors, staff, and society in general. And under your aegis, the State was able to reduce its stake considerably, which highlights the renewed trust toward the bank's stability.

Under your chairmanship, the Executive Board was also enhanced, and it became more diverse, combined with the rising talent from its own ranks of ABN AMRO and highly specialized expertise from outside the organization, this careful balance between continuity, new prospects led to a resilient, future-proof leadership team, as reflected by the reappointments so that we can ensure a strong governance and open mindset. One of your ongoing legacies is the governance. First, you mentioned Robert Swaak that was in charge of the bank and fundamentally improve the risk profile.

And last year, you mentioned Marguerite Berard, who now presented our strategy for the coming years that has been welcomed by investors in the bank and positions for ongoing growth rooted in its strong foundation under your [indiscernible] Executive Board was also enhanced and became more diverse through a combination of rising talents from the brands of ABN AMRO in a highly specialized expertise from outside the organization.

This careful balance between continuity and new prospects led to a resilient future-proof leadership team, as reflected by the reappointment of Annerie, Choy, and Dan again today. Moreover, you are an explicit advocate of Diversity and Inclusion, long before this was widely embraced as a principle not as an intrinsic objective, but based on the conviction that organizations perform better when different perspectives, backgrounds and experiences converged.

Under your chairmanship, this conviction consistently carried over in the composition of the Supervisory Board by accommodating a wide variety of talent and international experience and by considering both continuity and innovation, a leadership team emerged that is balanced future-proof, and resilient. A few weeks ago, your impressive career, was awarded with a 2026 IIS Distinguished Leadership and Service Award. This award is presented to persons who have made an exceptional and long-standing contribution to the global financial system stability. Previous recipients including Christine Lagarde, Jacob Frenkel, Mark Carney, and Mario Draghi— and they're impressive.

The Institute of International Finance acknowledged your dedication over 4 decades towards international financial stability, your leadership in banking and regulations, and your ability to bring public and private parties together. I was particularly struck by the words of IIF Chair Tim Adams at the ceremony, who said we need more Tom de Swaans, and for all the young people in the group. Tom de Swaan should be your example. You can hardly imagine a finer complement. Tom, now that you're stepping down today, you're leaving behind a bank that is stronger, more stable and more future-proof.

It's an honor to following your footsteps, and I will deeply respect the standards you set and have a strong sense of responsibility in continuing the work that you started. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, the Executive Board and everyone at ABN AMRO, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your wisdom and your unwavering dedication to this bank. We wish you the best of health, fulfillment, and wonderful moments in the years ahead.

I will now close this meeting, and thank -- I will thank everybody.

We still have to disclose the results of the vote.

Yes. I thought we did. Do you want to do that now and after that, I'll close the meeting?

[Interpreted] These are the results of the votes on the various agenda items. And in conclusion, all agenda items were adopted with the majorities as indicated. Please allow me not to read them all out, but you see that all items have been accepted with 97% to almost 100%. I hand back to the new chair. And I would like to close the meeting now and thank everyone for your presence.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm here today with Marguerite Berard, Chief Executive Officer of ABN. Marguerite, thank you for being with us this afternoon. And you know the drill by now. So let's start with the polling question.

Right. So what do you think will be the biggest driver of ABN share price performance in 2026, NII beating estimates, costs coming down faster than expected, capital distribution, further capital distribution or new M&A announcement? Let's see.

We were granted the capital question. But Marguerite, I'll start with the strategic question. You've been CEO of ABN for almost a year now. And what is the achievement that you are most proud of over the past 12 months and the biggest strategic priority for the next 12 months?

Yes. So what was very important in this first year for me at ABN AMRO was, I would say, to put together our strategic plan, create the momentum. And I would say now in 2026, it's all about delivering with discipline methodically quarter after quarter, and we have actually started. So every quarter, want to talk.

Perfect. Very clear. And so since the Capital Markets Day, a lot has happened on AI, even though the Capital Markets Day was only a couple of months back. So what is your view on how ABN can benefit from artificial intelligence and how are you adapting the bank?

Yes. AI is probably in our lifetime, the most important revolution we are all going to experience. And I'm not only talking about what's happening in our companies, I'm also talking about in our societies at large.

When I look at how we approach it in ABN AMRO, I think there are a few principles that you need to apply again very methodically. One is you need to have, I call it, your plumbing right, your foundations right. So you need to have a strong IT infrastructure. You need to have your data in order. You need to make sure that you have set, I would say, the right guardrails. No handcuffs, but guardrails.

What am I saying that is that we've collectively hated shadow IT. We are not going to like shadow AI. You don't want to be surprised one day realizing that AI is being used in your risk model without you being aware of it, for instance. So these are a number of principles.

Another important principle is that you want to, I would say, keep your options open as far as certain technological choices are concerned. For instance, it's not necessarily going to be all about large language models. In certain cases, small language models are going to be more efficient for us. World language models tomorrow may also be the right choice. So you don't necessarily want to lock yourself only with one partner.

Speed of adoption is going to be crucial as well. And that very much depends, first, I would say, on the DNA of the company. And there, I'm very happy because maybe it's a Dutch thing or maybe it's also ABN AMRO, but this is a company that is tech savvy, that enjoys it, that has a genuine curiosity. I mean we are already serving 5 million retail clients with only 26 branches. So this is, I would say, in the mindset of the company.

But nevertheless, we also all experience that AI comes with, I would say, a lot of curiosity, but creates also a lot of anxiety because everyone is reading the same bedtime stories.

So if you go and talk to colleagues in customer care centers, just like probably you are asking yourself, people like, "Oh, am I going to be replaced tomorrow?" And myself, I'm asking when it's going to be the moment when my Supervisory Board will have an AI agent [ dummy ] CEO against which I will have to justify my choices; so you have to take this into account when you look at how you want adoption to happen in your company.

And there, I'm going to give you just one example of something we did that I thought was actually quite smart. Yes. So I'll give you just one.

We -- a lot of colleagues were asking for Copilot licenses. And I said, well, okay, but these licenses are expensive. So are you going to use them and so on. So I said, if you want a Copilot license, you will pay for it from your development and training budget. So this is company money, but this is a budget on which colleagues have a say in how they use it. And that was great because not only from a cost perspective, but also in a matter of weeks, we had 10,000 requests for Copilot licenses.

And because people had actually decided they wanted it because this was their choice, because they had put a value on it because they're spending the money on this and not something else; they are actually using it massively.

And I like that a lot because had I gone through the company saying, "Hey, AI literacy, it's really important that you all have a Copilot license, and I want you all to use it, and this is going to be part of your yearly appraisal whether or not you're using AI in your job," I would have got pushed back. So this is also the way you help the company embrace the change.

And then what I also -- sorry, because I'm long, but I think it's an important topic. It's an important topic. What I think is also important is we make sure we build the right building blocks.

So for instance, intelligent document processing, conversational agents, data intelligence. These are all foundations that, for instance, intelligent document processing, we first used it in our lending journey in the corporate bank, reducing the time we needed to produce a credit memo by 30%. But now we can deploy it elsewhere in the bank. Conversational agent or AI agent, Anna handles right now 150,000 client interactions per month.

And what is really good is that not only you gain productivity, but you also see, for instance, improvements in client satisfaction. I'll give you an example. Now conversations we have with clients when our colleagues have a conversation on the phone with clients, well, the summary is done automatically by AI. And that means that our colleagues are actually fully engaged in the conversation. They're not multitasking, also typing the summary as they talk to the clients.

And so that makes not only for beta data because our summaries are in the same format with the same data we need and more reliable, but we also measure client satisfaction improvement. So it comes with many different advantages, I think.

Thank you very much for that. And we like examples, definitely. So now I'm going to ask you about capital, given also the...

Apparently, it definitely creates a lot of interest, yes.

Yes, it certainly does. So you have about 100 basis points of excess capital pro forma for NIBC. And so how should we think about the capital part from here, in particular, in light of the statement of distribution around 100%? How can it not be higher than 100%? Should we be thinking about M&A? Or how should we think about capital distribution?

So what I also like in your question and the expectations I see here is that it means that we start our strategic plan from a strong capital position, which I view as a plus, i.e., that makes me all the more confident that the distribution policy we shared at the Capital Market Day of up to 100% of the profit we generate between '26 and '28 is actually ambitious and achievable because your question is, "Hey, why don't you go even beyond?"

So well, I'd rather have you ask me this question than "Aren't you reaching too far?" So this is the first part. And this is also probably linked to the fact that at Q4, indeed, we made, I would say, significant progress in our RWA steering. This is part of also our strategic plan. So we reduced our RWA by EUR 7.7 billion. So this was also something important.

You're right, NIBC will kick in probably at Q3. We are between signing and closing right now. So closing is expected at Q3, and that's between 70 and 80 basis points. So you're right to take this into account.

Right now, I'm very comfortable with situation we're in. As you also know in the SSM, no bank can commit to any form of in ordinary distribution without prior approval from the ECB or you will find. So I have really no reason to go into that territory at the moment. But we're comfortable in the situation that we're in right now at the beginning of our plan.

Hopefully we go into...

Up to 100%.

And hopefully...

And at Q4, we do the assessment at Q4.

Okay. So next then about RWA efficiencies, which you already alluded to. You have a target of EUR 10 billion optimization measures, and you already delivered EUR 4 billion in Q4. So could you actually exceed the optimization measures, given that you are already quite well advanced after just 1 quarter?

So the EUR 10 billion you're referring to is especially the target we have for corporate bank. And indeed, in that area, we are moving at pace. If you look at Q4, we mobilized several important levers. One is in terms of how we steer on our portfolio. We accelerated the wind down of asset-based finance outside of the Netherlands. So that's in Germany, in France and the U.K. So that represented EUR 2 billion of RWA relief, EUR 500 million more to come, but I would say the important part has been achieved.

We also keep improving the quality of that data. So if you look at, for instance, the SME support factor, we got at Q4, EUR 1 billion RWA relief on the back of that. There is probably EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 2 billion more to come.

So again, we're moving at pace. But we keep the end target we shared only 4 months ago at our CMD, which is by the end of 2028, total RWA, including NIBC of 145 billion for the whole bank. So -- but we are happy with the progress we are making quarter after quarter.

Perfect. And then if we talk now about M&A, so following the announcement of the NIBC acquisition, how has the strategy on M&A evolved? Should we expect from here, maybe just small bolt-ons in Wealth Management? Or is there scope for other targets?

Yes. And I should start by saying that we don't have an M&A buffer if that relates also to your question on capital, we don't have an M&A buffer. We've recently done two moves. One is the acquisition of HAL in Germany, and we are there in the process of now integrating. So legal merger should happen in the summer, IT merger in the fall.

And there, this is going according to plan in terms of planning and the synergies we expect. So this is an important moment for us because there we are creating, I would say, a strong #3 position in the German market for Wealth Management.

If I look at NIBC now, we are between signing and closing. So as I mentioned, closing to happen at Q3, most likely. And basically, we are right now fully focused on making this happen and making these acquisitions a success. So this is our primary focus. So we're not looking at additional M&A.

We also shared when we presented our strategy last November, what would be the criteria where we to look at M&A. So first, it would have to be a perfect fit in our five long-term ambitions that we shared, keep growing in the Dutch retail market. That's what we did, for instance, with NIBC, build a strong top 5 position in Europe in wealth and so on.

So it would have to be coherent with our strategy. If it's not coherent, there's no reason to do it. It's quite evident, but nevertheless, that's what I call discipline as well.

Second, it would have to be accretive. So if you look, for instance, at the acquisition of HAL, that was a return on invested capital of 15%. If you look at NIBC return on invested capital of 18%, so this is what I call accretive also for shareholders. And we also take into consideration the execution risk, low execution risk. So this is typically the characteristic you have with the HAL acquisition as well as with NIBC. So this is also something we like when we look at them. But right now, it's not on the table.

Okay. Good to hear. So if I move on then to another hot topic for ABN, which is costs and in particular, FTE reductions, which have come down by another -- almost 600 in Q4; so are you able to replace them effectively via digitalization, automation, AI? Maybe if you can give us some color. Sometimes I get questions from investors, 20% of the workforce that's massive, how do you really achieve that?

Yes. So absolutely, we shared -- when we presented our strategy, and I think we are the only European bank to did that, we shared three cost targets: Cost income, absolute cost target and FTE reduction target.

And why is this FTE reduction target important is that 80% of the EUR 900 million cost savings we announced, depend on achieving this FTE reduction. So this is why I think it is also an important indication to KPI to monitor. That's one.

Again, here, we are moving at pace. We -- in 2025, and that was only between Q2 and Q4, we reduced our workforce by 1,500. If you take into account the 5,200 that we've announced by the end of 2028, it represents 30% of the trajectory we shared. So we are absolutely moving at pace.

How are we proceeding? Everything we shared in terms of cost savings is grounded in a business case, a business case that was fully grounded with the businesses or the functions that we are presenting it, discussed with HR, discussed with finance, but also we even had internal audit go through the figures before we do. So I can tell you that it is grounded.

Second, we also make sure that we are doing it in, I would say, a smart way. So we didn't, for instance, go for a voluntary departure plan in the bank where you may lose key people in certain departments or certain profiles you don't want to lose.

So the way we proceed is that we do it in a more targeted manner. We call that an RFA, request for advice, with our works council that you have in the Netherlands, one by one, we have 25 RFAs going on in the bank right now. We do it in a very partnering way, I don't know if it's the right word in English, but you see what I mean with our works council. So I'm very impressed by the maturity of the conversations we have and how we do that.

We do it also by supporting the colleagues who leave the bank. So we have a very robust social plan that covers the entire time period of our strategic plan. It will expire in 2029. So basically, it means that colleagues have full visibility of -- on the financial support they get when they leave the bank, but also they get support in finding new opportunities outside of the bank.

Bear in mind also that the Netherlands is a full employment and tight labor market. So -- but we support colleagues find these opportunities. The cost of the social plan is fully embedded in our financial trajectory as well. So you have EUR 400 million restructuring charge in our financial trajectory through the plan. We already booked EUR 100 million in 2025 out of this EUR 400 million.

So this is, again, very, I would say, very documented happening quarter after quarter. And we are quite -- quite is too much. We are absolutely confident that we are reaching this target and moving at pace.

Perfect. And so if I stay then on the cost side of things. And if I start from Q4 reported and I remove the regulatory levies, the EUR 40 million of nonrecurring seasonal, let's call it, in Q4 and I annualize with some upside pressure, call it, from CLA coming by the summer; we still get a touch below the EUR 5.6 billion guidance for the full year. So there seems to be some upside here.

Again, I feel we set ambitious and achievable targets. So the EUR 5.6 billion cost target you mentioned for 2026, I'm confident we are going to reach it. Bear in mind, and you also mentioned it, so this is why you say, well, there is upside, yes. And at the same time, you mentioned that we will have our CLA negotiations as well.

We are still -- the inflation context is still to be determined in the Netherlands based on also current geopolitical developments and so on. So there are still also uncertainties on these factors. It's why I'm, I would say, comfortable we start from a good position and again, not changing the guidance we gave only 4 months ago.

Yes. I appreciate the point of not changing the guidance, but it is my job, I guess.

No, no, I -- at the same time, the good thing in the way you're asking me a question that I remember, I think the first time you met were telling me, well, ABN AMRO is sometimes surprising us setting targets and not necessarily reaching them.

So I like better that you tell me, well, you set targets, we're confident you can reach them. Can you do more? It's a change of tone, I would say, in the way we look at the bank. So I think this is a good one as well.

Right. So I'll keep on with this tone. I'll ask about NII then.

Too conservative on NII as well.

Yes, especially the curve has also changed since you gave the guidance. So can you walk us through the impact that potentially the higher short-term part of the curve would have on your replicating portfolio? And also, what are you seeing in terms of deposit mix shift? Because if you look at the Netherlands, actually, beginning of the year, the current accounts are slightly down as a mix. So yes, I'm wondering, how do all these things impact your NII?

So the guidance for commercial NII for 2026 is EUR 6.4 billion. And again, I'm not changing it. At the same time, if you had asked me the question last week, you would have told me that the forward curve was more of a headwind than a tailwind.

So -- and something I've given up on doing right now is recalculating my replicating portfolio on the back of the forward curve every morning because I don't -- it's just changing too much. So let's put it this way. The EUR 6.4 billion is a guidance we are comfortable with.

In terms of mix, if you look at our replicating portfolio, I would say 35% are current accounts, 47% are demand deposits and the remaining part term deposits. And we do not see a change in the mix right now in our replicating portfolio. This is -- yes, we keep the assumption for the moment.

Perfect. And in terms of loan growth, is there any area where you are seeing a pickup in demand or perhaps the opposite after what's happening in Iran?

So if we -- I would say first that the Dutch economy is in Europe, a strong resilient economy, if you benchmark it since COVID, the Netherlands have consistently had GDP growth above the EU average, as I mentioned, very good employment market, strong fiscal position, debt-to-GDP ratio of 43.7%, which is...

Remarkable in European context, yes.

Yes, given I think it's an asset for the country. So all these are, I would say, strong foundations.

When I look at the mortgage market because structurally, there is housing shortage in the Netherlands, we still see it as a dynamic market in terms of house prices, but also on the demand side, less dynamic than in '25, but nevertheless, dynamic. And there, we have, again, a strong position. Our market share in new production in Q4 was 21%. That's a strong #2 position.

You could say that we have a slight margin compression. Bear in mind -- however, that on mortgages, I mean, bear in mind, however, that this is also linked to the fact that we see a growing share in our -- the mortgages with we finance on mortgages that benefit from the state guarantee scheme. So there, the margins are a bit thinner. But at the same time, it's also lighter on capital RWA. So in terms of profitability, I think this is good.

So I would say a strong mortgage market, 5%, 7% growth. If I look at the -- on the corporate side, I would say definitely above GDP growth, but not as dynamic as the mortgage market.

Well, already above GDP growth is something in the corporate market. Okay. So Wealth Management, you mentioned earlier the consolidation of HAL. How is that progressing? And how do you see the EBM positioning here? Because you have an ambition to get to a top 5 position in Europe. So yes, both the short-term integration and also the strategic positioning...

So as I said, in terms of planning, we are -- this is going absolutely according to plan right now, very much focused on legal merger in the summer and IT merger in the fall. I'm very -- we're very focused on that because I think these are always sensitive moments. So you want to time box this integration moment so that they don't take too long. And so there, you will primarily see the synergy benefits after the IT merger, so more in '27.

And what is important for me as well is that this is a period where we remain commercially active, focused on serving our clients and so on. And this is crucial. And this is also something I'm happy with because this can be sensitive moments where we are more inward-looking than focusing on the clients. The name of the game is make sure that we are fully focused on our clients during this period. And this is going to be a good integration.

Right. Let me pause here for a second. I want to see if we have questions from the room. Okay. I'll come back to the room in 5 minutes. And in the meantime, I'll ask you a couple more.

So on the Corporate Bank, we discussed briefly the portfolio optimization by 2028, but also a shift in business towards more profitable areas. So how is this going?

So this was really the main focus for Corporate Bank. So we shared very clear targets in terms of the RWA allocated to our Corporate Bank, with cap at 50% of the total RWA of the bank moving to more profitable growth. So that implied also clear choices in certain things that we would stop doing. I mentioned asset-based finance, for instance. So I think this is important.

A lot of the data optimization we are doing to alleviate our RWA are also done by our Corporate Bank. So this is a positive as well. And it is, again, methodically step by step, for instance, we have corporate clients that do not have yet external ratings. We know that when we have these ratings, it alleviates the RWAs. We do it very methodically, and that's positive.

We also, I would say, implement a more selective approach to our client portfolio. So what we do is for each client, when you're in a credit committee, you look at, "Hey, how -- what is the [indiscernible] of the relation -- I mean, of this operation of the relationship?"

We take always a single client view. We take into account the cross-sell we have within the Corporate Bank. For instance, if we do the here, but at the same time, we can also do additional business with Global Markets. We can do additional business on advisory and so on.

We, of course, take that into account, single client view, including also what we are doing with our Wealth business because something you have to -- and this is really the sweet spot of ABN AMRO, something you have to bear in mind is that in the Netherlands, 7 out of 10 companies are family-owned. And so we are really good at serving our clients on the Corporate side and on the Wealth side.

So we take that into account also in the credit committee because sometimes you say, "Hey, maybe this specific loan is not as profitable as we would like to do." But at the same time, if this is also a client on the Wealth side and if we take the risk of losing the client assets, this would really not be a smart move. So we take a single client view into account in all the decisions we make.

And by the way, what I'm saying about dual clients, i.e., clients we serve on the Wealth part and the Corporate part, this is true in the Netherlands, but this is also, I would say, the backbone of the economy throughout Northwestern Europe. And this is the same in the German Mittelstand. This is the same in Belgium and so on. So this is really something we do well.

When I talk about this, I would say, client selection approach, it happens more over time through the course of the plan, and it happens as loans are maturing and we have the question of, "Hey, are we refinancing this loan with this client or not?" And so we do it when the loan is maturing basically. So this is more spread out across the plan, whereas the data quality optimization I was sharing with you, may happen more at the beginning of the plan.

Yes, absolutely. So we spent 30 minutes chatting, and I haven't asked yet about cost of risk because it was only 1 basis point in 2025. It has not been a topic at all for ABN recently. But the market is worried about several things. We have private credit, we have higher price of oil. Of course, you lend to corporate, which could be disrupted by AI. So how are you going through your loan book and making sure that cost of risk doesn't go up materially?

Yes. So we gave a guidance for the cost of risk throughout the course of our plan of -- and through the cycle of 10 to 15 basis points, guiding more to the low end of this range, i.e., 10 basis points. We are absolutely comfortable with that. You asked me -- you maybe didn't ask me, but you mentioned private credit as being a concern. If I look at ABN AMRO whole, total exposure to private credit, EUR 200 million. This is probably one of the lowest so far.

We do have a very strong balance sheet. It's been a long time that our noncore CIB has been fully wind down. And of course, like all banks, we are right now stressing our loan portfolio with all -- with very different kind of scenarios, conflict in the Middle East ending in the short term, ending in 2 months, prolonged in the second half of the year. So we are taking all this into account.

As far as Stage 3 provisioning are concerned, we do not see any concerns right now. as far as taking more, I would say, a broader approach in terms of geopolitical risk overlay and so on, this will be depending on how the situation evolves, something we take into consideration. Again, reiterating that we do not see cost of risk moving away from the guidance we gave of 10 to 15 basis points through the cycle. So a very strong balance sheet.

Yes, the EUR 200 million is particularly low.

Yes. I know it's a bit boring, but it's where we are.

And this is fund financing. So over...

It is total exposure, yes.

Can I check back with the room if we have any questions? No, I will happy to continue then.

So we have gone through the P&L and the shorter-term target, let's say, so '26 and '28. And you have an ambitious plan. Cost income was at 62% underlying in '25, going down to below 55%. Yet the sector in our numbers is at 44% cost income by '28. And you mentioned that ABN is a very digital bank actually with only 26 branches. So I guess the cost income ought to be lower than that. So what is your -- what are your thoughts about the longer-term game?

So indeed -- and we do have figures for '29 and 2030 in terms of where we want to be, in terms of cost income, top line, cost base and so on. Are these figures better than the ones we have for '28? Absolutely. Are we sharing them right now? No, because we are, again, very much focused at executing what we committed to. But yes, going forward, there are absolutely no reasons for us not converging even more on our cost income target.

But right now, I'm just very focused on executing what we shared already because I remember when we first shared that we would be, for instance, reducing rightsizing our FTEs by 20% people said, "Hey, that's very ambitious." We are doing it step by step, but forward-looking, is there beyond 2028 additional upside? Yes. I mean one factor, for instance, is that the full synergy of NIBC will only [ kink ] in 2029. Just to give you an example. This is not the only factor I have in mind.

Great. Okay. No, very clear. And so I have a couple of more questions. One is on the clearing business. We talked about capital as you have alone well above, but -- and we don't necessarily need to talk about disposals, but clearing seems a bit less core than the rest of your business perimeter. So how are you thinking about this business? Why is it core for ABN?

So it is true -- and that's the good thing when you -- I would say, you come from the outside, which was my case when I joined ABN AMRO is that you have absolutely no [ taboo ]. So I looked at the bank from a purely, I would say, neutral perspective, looking at each business, thinking, "Hey, what is it bringing to our business model, what is core, what is noncore?" Nothing personal, let's just be systematic.

And several things I like very much about clearing. One, it is a business we are really good at. I mean maybe this is linked to our Dutch DNA, our strong Dutch root and the fact that the Dutch have -- our traders, merchants in the block. But our trading -- I mean, our clearing bank has grown with our clearing -- with our clients throughout the world.

So -- and it's interesting when you come to visit us in Amsterdam. I mean, literally, our clients are really next door to the bank. This is an ecosystem that grew together. So this is a business we are good at.

Second, it is also for us, very complementary to our business model. First, it's fairly countercyclical. When there is volatility, our clearing business, just like our global market activities, actually thrive. Another element is that this is a very short term -- it's a fee business, which I like to, implementing also our NII business. It's a short-term balance sheet. So you can fold it quite easily whenever you want these are short-term engagements.

And so all in all, we find it quite a complementary mix to our business model. And we also have synergies we can build within the bank, for instance, using the capacities of -- and the technical capacities of clearing with our global market activities, but also serving of our Wealth business. So these are all things that we think are good thing.

And very importantly, we can also sustain the growth of clearing because, of course, you always need to ask ourselves, "Hey, are we the right owner? Can we sustain the growth? This is a top 3 player in the world, can we sustain its growth over time?" And this is what we clearly also shared in our strategic plan, both in terms of liquidity, but also in terms of capital.

We shared that we would be willing to allocate an additional EUR 3 billion RWA to clearing. It's not permanent. As I say, clearing has -- can fallen, but it's up to an additional EUR 3 billion. And so this is something that can absolutely fit our business model.

Very clear. I will then close with a question on European competitiveness, not about ABN, but there is a lot happening in Europe. So I'm keen to hear your thoughts when you speak with regulators. What will be your shopping? What are you asking them for?

I think it's a question that I would say, goes even beyond the banking sector. I often think that Europe's main impediment is its risk aversion because in the -- I would say it's very often when we, for instance, have stability as the main goal for the financial sector, and I fully -- I was working at the [indiscernible] at the time of the financial crisis. I vividly remember what it is to -- so don't get me wrong. I fully understand this goal.

But there is something that we do not always factor in the equation, is the cost of not moving, the cost of not -- I call it the silent tax of Europe, the silent tariff of Europe, not taking enough risk and it has sort of a cumulative impact year after year of lagging behind.

And so if you look, for instance, in the banking sector, you take the top 15 banks in Europe, we made the calculation between 2020 and 2024, 90% of the capital that was created by this bank has been sterilized in additional capital requirements. Maybe that makes us more stable. But at the same time, this is money that's not flowing in the economy.

And right now, I think it is because we have the Draghi report in Europe. In the Netherlands, we have the [ Wennink ] report. This is a cousin of the Draghi report, basically looking at, I would say, what are the structural transitions of Europe on energy, defense, digital tech, mobility. This requires financing. And we know that the European economy is today intermediated to almost 80% by banking financing. And so when you sterilize capital, then it has its toll on the economy. It's just a fact.

So how do we collectively in Europe have -- but what I like is that I also feel there is a growing awareness, which is important. We certainly don't call it deregulation in Europe because we don't like the word, but let's call it simplification so on. So I think there is this awareness.

And I can only welcome the fact that we are more willing on focusing on, I would say, the risks that matter and proportionality and also making sure that we go through -- I mean, we manage to have a more perfect banking union because in fairness, it's still an imperfect banking union. Many rules are still country dependent.

I mean if you look at the [ Red ] Netherlands, for instance, we have...

It's a touch small...

We have a countercyclical buffer of 2%. I mean you have many rules that are country-specific and that take also that toll on the economy. So I think the awareness that if we want a strong Europe, we also need a strong financial sector and what it implies, I think, is very welcome. Let's see what comes out of it.

Thank you very much, Marguerite.

Thank you very much.

Welcome to ABN AMRO's Q4 2025 Analyst and Investor Call. Please note this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the call over to the speakers. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for your patience. Welcome to ABN AMRO's Q4 and Full Year 2025 Results Presentation. I am joined today by our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager; and our CRO, Serena Fioravanti.

After our presentation, we will open the line for your questions. But first, let me start with the highlights. It has been an important year of progress commercially, strategically and operationally, and Q4 capped out with a solid performance. We executed as we committed to, staying focused and disciplined in delivering on our strategy.

I will list some of the main financial performance indicators before elaborating on the strategic progress underlying these numbers. Q4 delivered a net profit of EUR 410 million, supported by strong NII and fee income. During the fourth quarter, our market share for new mortgage production rose by 21%, resulting in a net increase of EUR 2.5 billion in mortgage volume.

Client assets increased by around EUR 7 billion, driven by strong net new assets, but also the high integration and market performance.

NII benefited from an elevated treasury result and full year NII ended in line with our guidance. Costs landed at the lower end of our guidance, underlining our disciplined execution. Credit quality is solid with EUR 70 million of impairments in Q4.

We made significant progress on optimizing our capital position, reducing RWA by close to EUR 8 billion, further strengthening our capital position. We are proposing a final dividend of EUR 0.70 per share. And following our capital assessment, we are announcing EUR 500 million in additional distributions.

Let me go into more detail on how we are progressing on the execution of our strategy. During 2025, we made significant progress in our priority of achieving profitable growth.

Mortgage performance showed significant strength reflecting clear commercial choices and focused execution. We secured a solid top-tier market position with a gross production of EUR 14 billion, 1-4, resulting in a net increase of our mortgage portfolio of EUR 8 billion.

Both Personal Banking and Wealth Management delivered on the deposit growth ambitions, jointly bringing in a total of EUR 8 billion new volume in Q4. Wealth Management has taken a big leap forward in 2025, with client assets up by EUR 44 billion due to the HAL acquisition, but also good market performance and strong net new assets.

Corporate Banking closed an SRT in December, which is an important milestone to provide additional capital headroom for future profitable growth. New10 is our brand, which offers SMEs a modern online lending solution. And there, we demonstrated steady growth, reaching EUR 1 billion in financing provided to 10,000 entrepreneurs since the launch. Clearing is strengthening its top 3 position, showing higher fee income during the fourth quarter.

Now returning to our cost base. Through simplifying the bank and reducing run rate costs, we are delivering on our promise to rightsize our cost base. In 2025, total FTEs reduced by 1,500 across the bank. We transitioned some external staff to internal positions in order to internalize critical roles within the bank.

To build the necessary future commercial capabilities, we are also reallocating resources towards these activities. And even including the HAL integration, total FTE levels declined by around 300 of the year, marking the significant progress we've made. Overall, we achieved around EUR 160 million of cost savings, mainly in commercial optimization.

We are also progressing on simplifying the organization and streamlining the IT landscape, which is contributing to further cost savings. In our efforts to reduce IT complexity, we retired more than 200 applications during 2025. We are also on track to effectuate the legal merger of our mortgage entity later this year that will simplify our organizational structure. Overall, we've made significant progress during 2025 toward our strategic goal of optimizing our cost structure and streamlining the bank.

This quarter, we also made excellent progress in capital optimization. Overall, RWA declined by EUR 7.7 billion during Q4. The decline is partly attributable to seasonal effects within Clearing, but it is primarily a result of delivering on our strategic goals. More than EUR 4 billion of reductions came from RWA optimization measures, including the partial reintroduction of the SME support factor and further data and quality improvements.

Corporate Banking realized EUR 3 billion of RWA optimization during Q4, so they are well positioned to achieve the EUR 5 billion reduction target that we set.

Portfolio optimization advances are due to the continued wind down of Asset-Based Finance International, which accelerated last quarter. The new SRT transaction provided EUR 1.5 billion in RWA relief for our active portfolio management. We are on track with our commitment to lower the share of allocated RWAs in Corporate Banking to approximately 50% by 2028.

Now turning to capital returns. Starting with the final dividend. We propose an amount of EUR 0.70 per share, which combined with the interim dividend of EUR 0.54 per share equates to a dividend payout of 50% of our reported net profit.

In addition to the regular dividend, we today announced further distributions totaling EUR 500 million following from our capital assessment. In this assessment, we took into account the expected capital impact of the NIBC acquisition, which now stands at around 80 basis points.

This additional distribution will be split evenly between a cash dividend of EUR 250 million and a share buyback program of EUR 250 million, which is subject to regulatory approval. Once this approval has been granted, we will start the share buyback program.

The additional cash dividend of EUR 250 million will be paid at the same time as the final dividend. Overall, this means that over 2025, the payout ratio amounts to 87%. This reflects our strong commitment to shareholder returns.

Before I discuss our fourth quarter financial performance, I will briefly highlight relevant developments in the Dutch economy. The Dutch economy remained resilient in 2025 with housing prices continuing to rise and unemployment at record lows. Domestic spending remains a key driver of economic activity, leading to robust mortgage activity and stable credit quality.

Inflation is gradually declining, with the rate for 2026 expected to be about 2.3%. Manufacturing demand is somewhat weak, however, and industry is facing elevated cost pressure. Policy measures from the new coalition could support the industry despite the government's minority position. Overall, the Netherlands is expected to head into a period of slower but stable growth despite geopolitical uncertainty with gradual disinflation and a strong fiscal position.

Now turning to our financial performance over the fourth quarter, starting with client assets and liabilities on Slide 9. Our strategy to grow our deposit base is leading to tangible results. Total client deposits increased by EUR 8.3 billion in Q4, primarily within Wealth Management and Personal and Business Banking. Wealth Management generated around EUR 2 billion in core net new assets during the fourth quarter, mainly thanks to new cash inflow, partly offset by outflow of securities.

We saw limited outflow from HAL as they managed to retain their clients during the acquisition process. During 2025, but especially during the latter half of the year, we have seen conversion from cash into mandates and services such as DPM, private markets and advisory services. These flows demonstrate the increased commercial focus of our wealth franchise, growing the client base through targeted offerings, followed by conversion into fee-based services.

Moving to our interest income. Commercial NII continued to benefit from mortgage and deposit volume growth. Mortgage margins are slightly declining due to the ongoing interest from clients for mortgages under the National Mortgage Guarantee Scheme.

Corporate loan margins improved modestly, supporting overall commercial NII. Other commercial NII increased due to an incidental provision release of EUR 16 million, underlying the performance was stable compared to Q3.

Residual NII increased by EUR 66 million from a strong treasury quarter. Incidentals of EUR 10 million have supported the overall results. Due to foreign currency transactions, treasury shows a temporary revenue shift from other income to net interest income. For the full year, NII ended in line with the guidance and reflected our disciplined execution of our strategy.

Moving now to fee income on Slide 11. Fee income rose by 2% quarter-on-quarter, reflecting progress towards our objective of growing revenue with scalable, capital-efficient business segments.

Wealth Management fee income improved from a structured project campaign in France and positive market developments, mainly in the Netherlands and Germany. Clearing benefited from increased trading activity due to higher market volatility. Fees at P&BB normalized after higher seasonal payment activity in Q3.

Other income remained subdued with both Corporate Banking and Treasury performing below trend this quarter. Within Corporate Banking, equity participations booked a loss, while treasury booked negative other income of EUR 40 million during Q4. As I mentioned, due to foreign currency transaction, treasury shows a temporary revenue shift from other income to net interest income.

Now turning to costs. Underlying expenses increased in Q4 due to seasonal and nonrecurring items. These costs totaled approximately EUR 40 million and will not carry over into the first quarter. Full year costs ended at the lower end of our guidance. We booked EUR 60 million in restructuring costs in Q4, a bit more than what we had guided for as some reorganizations have been brought forward. So far, a total of around EUR 100 million out of the EUR 400 million restructuring cost has already been taken.

For next year, we expect somewhat higher restructuring costs, although the precise timing of the various projects makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact figure. Cost discipline remains central to our strategy, and we have a clear plan on how to achieve further reductions over the coming years as we work on delivering our 2028 target.

Now turning to our credit quality. Credit quality remains strong with a Stage 3 ratio of 2.1% and slight increase of the coverage ratio. After 2 years of limited net impairments, we had EUR 70 million of impairments this quarter. These were mainly related to new and existing individual corporate files across various sectors.

We continue to monitor potential impacts of macroeconomic and geopolitical developments on our loan portfolios. So far, however, we do not expect material impact, reflecting the high quality of our loan book and our prudent risk management. Full year cost of risk was 1 basis point, that is to say well below our through-the-cycle guidance of 10 to 15 basis points. We expect cost of risk to gradually move towards the low end of the through-the-cycle range by 2028, consistent with the normalizing macro environment.

Now turning to our capital position. Our CET1 rose to 15.4%, driven by the substantial RWA reduction that we achieved this quarter. In our capital assessment, we took into account the impact of our intended acquisition of NIBC. Note that this impact on our capital ratio is now around 80 basis points. This higher impact to our capital ratio is due to the fact that our current RWAs are now almost EUR 8 billion lower.

The total payout for 2025 is around EUR 1.8 billion, equal to an 87% payout ratio. This includes interim and final dividend, the EUR 500 million additional distributions and the share buyback executed in Q2. Going forward, our capital assessment will be performed in light of our stated capital policy with total distributions up to 100% of net profit.

Before I wrap up, let me reiterate the financial guidance we gave at our Capital Market Day for this coming year. At our CMD in November, we already provided our outlook for NII and cost for this year, and this outlook has not changed. We expect commercial NII of around EUR 6.4 billion for 2026. This year, we will have the full year contribution of HAL in our NII. The interest rate environment is in line with what we communicated in November. Some curve steepening is bringing forward improvements to the NII we forecasted.

Current yields will lead to a gentle tailwinds to replicating yields this year, potentially leading to a small improvement in liability margins. Furthermore, we expect continued growth of the balance sheet, but with some margin pressure on mortgages, partly offsetting volume growth. Costs are expected to increase to around EUR 5.6 billion, reflecting the inclusion of full year HAL costs.

Now let me wrap up. Today's results show we are delivering on what we said we would do. Q4 closed on a strong note with EUR 410 million net profit, supported by solid commercial momentum across the bank.

We continue to grow where it matters, EUR 2.5 billion in new mortgage production, a 21% market share and around EUR 7 billion was added in client assets during this quarter. A major highlight this quarter was a EUR 7.7 billion decline in RWAs, which is a significant step forward in optimizing our capital allocation and executing on our strategic priorities.

We also announced EUR 500 million in additional distributions between dividends and share buyback, underlining our continued commitment to disciplined capital returns. With a 15.4% CET1 ratio, we maintain a strong position to keep investing in our strategy and to support our clients.

So across all 3 of our strategic pillars: profitable growth, rightsizing our cost base and optimizing capital, the evidence shows clear delivery and strong momentum. We are focused, we are committed and we're delivering on what we promised.

I thank you very much for your attention. And now we open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Delphine Lee from JPMorgan.

I've got 2 very quick clarification and then just yes, another one. And so if we start with just on capital, on the RWA reduction this quarter, so the SME supporting factor, I think you previously guided to something like EUR 3 billion, if I remember this correctly. Has that now completely taken in '25, and we shouldn't expect more positive impacts going forward in '26?

And then on your cost base, so you mentioned some nonrecurring items, which are not restructuring charges or incidentals. Just if you could just quantify that, that would be great.

And then my last question is just more generally speaking, given where your CET1 is above 15% compared to your target of above 13.75%. I was just wondering why have you not decided to distribute a bit more and have additional buybacks or dividends and then pay out closer to 100%. I know you did flag it wouldn't be 100%, but I'm just wondering what's holding you back?

Thank you very much. I will take your first question on RWA on CET1, and Ferdi will guide you through the various nonrecurring items in costs. On RWA, we're right, the total impact we expect from CSME support factor will be probably up to EUR 2.5 billion to EUR 3 billion. And as I said, we only partially reintroduced CSME support factor this quarter, i.e., we only took EUR 1 billion of RWA relief coming from there. So you're right, it's partial, and the rest will come in coming quarters. That's one.

On our CET1 position, you're right, we're very happy with the progress we made this year. We have a strong capital position. And in our capital assessment, we also took into account our intention to acquire NIBC. This will impact our CET1 ratio as of the second half of the year, probably Q3.

But we start our strategic plan with a very strong position. We are committed to the policy we shared with you in terms of the distribution at our CMD, i.e., up to 100% of our net profit between '26 and '28. And you're right, we had also shared that in Q4 that will -- in Q4 '25, that will be not up to 100%.

Maybe Delphine, on cost. So number one, if you look at Q4 operating expenses, underlying, we take out the EUR 59 million in restructuring and the EUR 135 million in levies. What we've guided for that you always see a cost increase in Q4. For us, we translate that in roughly EUR 40 million nonrecurring and seasonal cost that was specifically related to M&A-related cost for the intended acquisition of NIBC. And what you always have in Q4 is some retention and variable payments as well as marketing expenses, which are higher. So basically, the underlying plus 4% is fully in line with what we expected for Q4.

The next question comes from Namita Samtani from Barclays.

My first question on the replicating portfolio. Is it still EUR 165 billion in size? And just looking at the replicating income portfolio slide on Page 21, is my interpretation correct that the October curve, you're expecting the income to inflect in the middle of 2026, that on the January curve, we should consider it already inflected and to be up from here quarter-on-quarter?

And my second question, I just wanted to ask on the RWA allocation in the Corporate Bank. It was around 51% in '25, and that's excluding Clearing, but the target is 50% in 2028. I just was wondering if you were willing to go below the 50% allocation? Or how do you think about this?

Ferdinand will take you through replicating portfolio. When it comes to RWA allocation to the Corporate Bank, I mean, first, bear in mind that in the effects we described of our RWA decrease, you also have some seasonal effects that's important, especially at Clearing. So that's an important one. The second one is our Corporate Bank has moved fast in order to also free up capital headroom for future profitable growth. So we are not changing our intentions or guidance, i.e., bringing our total RWA allocation to the Corporate Bank at circa 50% by 2028. But we are moving fast, I agree with you.

Namita, on the replicating portfolio, indication is still around the same size of what we said previous quarter, EUR 165 billion, of which 40% to 45% reprices within 1 year. If you look at Slide 21, the sensitivity, this is really the replicating income, looks to be more positive from recent steepening we've seen.

Do keep in mind that the sensitivity only shows the replicating portfolio income. So this excludes changes to client savings coupons. But overall, with a further steepening, it looks a bit more positive. But be mindful, this is just a point in time. And at the end of the day, it's always a balance between positive accretion of the replication with volume margin on the back of competition and potential mix shift. So for now, we just stick to our overall guidance on NII.

The next question comes from Giulia Aurora Miotto from Morgan Stanley.

I'm afraid I will go back on the capital. You basically already have 100 basis points above the 13.7% pro forma for NIBC. So is the next excess capital distribution decision coming with full year '26 results? Or given the level, could we expect something sooner? Or perhaps there is some M&A that you're looking at that leads to holding back some capital. So yes, some clarification on why holding such a big buffer above 13.7%, please?

And then secondly, on the forward look for '26 guidance, given the steeper curve, and I mean, I hear you Ferdi, when you say, well, yes, but this doesn't include deposit costs, okay, but I don't expect banks to increase the savings rate anytime soon, unless I'm wrong. And then on costs, given what you printed in the quarter, it seems like there could be some upside on your EUR 6.4 billion for commercial NII and also on the cost guidance for '26. Can you give us any comment on perhaps if I'm correct on how conservative your guidance is struck at the moment?

Thank you. So I will let Ferdi take your question on forward-looking, and I will take your question on capital. Let me reiterate because we have given a very clear outline on how we think about this during our CMD, that was 2.5 months ago, and we haven't changed the way we look at it.

First, we will communicate always the outcome of our capital assessment annually with our Q4 results. So we are not changing that. Number two, with respect to M&A, as we also shared at our CMD, we are in the process of integrating HAL. We have also -- we are between signing and closing for NIBC. And we are not right now considering additional M&A, so there is no M&A buffer. This being said, we are, I would say, happy with the fact that we've moved fast on some of our commitments and that we start our strategic plan with a strong capital position that therefore, gives us confidence in our distribution policy of up to 100% between '26 and '28. Ferdi?

Yes, Giulia, on NII and on costs, let me start on NII. Commercial NII guidance for this year is EUR 6.4 billion. Underlying trends, liability NII, we expect growth, both from the replicating and underlying volume growth. Asset NII is still slightly lower, specifically pressure from mortgages margins, only partially offset by volume growth and other commercial NII at similar levels. And we also said this excludes investments and divestments as the exact timing of NIBC is not known and also the closure of Alfam is not known. So we are comfortable with that guidance.

Yes, if you look at the forward curve, as explained during the CMD, we have conservative assumptions, and we expect stable margins for interest-bearing deposits. So that's for savings and for term and only the current accounts to move in line with the replicating portfolio. So that is roughly 25% of our total deposits. So that's EUR 65 billion. So yes, on the back of the more steepening, it looks a bit more positive, but let's see what happens overall on the volume margins and the mix there.

On the cost, sorry, Giulia, moving over to cost. Overall, if you look at 2026, EUR 5.6 billion. We are making good progress on our cost savings measures, but we also expect some pressures for 2026. Number one, you need to include the cost of HAL for a full year, and it was only half year included for 2025, so that adds EUR 135 million.

Secondly, we have -- our CLA is ending at midyear, and we have included in our plan an overall inflation of 2%. And also, you should expect to start seeing some more cost, for example, in terms of integration costs for the HAL acquisition. So we stick to our overall cost guidance of EUR 5.6 billion, excluding restructurings for this year.

The next question comes from Johan Ekblom from UBS.

Just 2 questions, please. So first, when we think about organic capital generation in 2026, can you give us some guidance on how to think about the RWA trajectory? I get that there are some seasonal impacts in Q4. I think you mentioned EUR 1 billion roughly in Clearing. But taking kind of the measures that you're implementing in the Corporate Banking business and potential for future SRTs, et cetera, more SME support factor, just any kind of guidance on sequential or trajectory on RWAs would be helpful.

And then just picking up on one of the comments you made that one of the reasons for the weaker other income is reflected in the better treasury results. So when we think about 2026, do you expect that to remain the case, i.e., should we be assuming a continued good treasury result but a weaker other income? Or is that expected to be more normal in 2026, please?

Thank you for the question. So I will let Ferdi elaborate on both items, but just a couple of points from my side. But as I said, we're happy with the good progress we've made so far, especially on RWA optimization. Bear in mind that, yes, there is some volatility -- seasonality, I mean, seasonality in this RWA. And also, we have front-loaded some of these optimizations. So basically, the rest will be more spread out over time. This is what you should, I think, keep in mind. There are additional optimizations coming, more spread out over time.

Ferdi, do you want to elaborate on that and also take the question on treasury results and...

Johan, specifically on RWA, yes, the Corporate Bank is now around 51%, where we had below 50% for 2028. But you should take into account, as Marguerite said, there's always some seasonality at Q4 of balance sheet steering. We still have in plans a growth of EUR 3 billion overall for Clearing. And for the rest on the other side, we have significant business growth expected for mortgages. Also for full year 2026, as said, the impact of NIBC and also the small relief from Alfam, you should take into account when looking at 2026. Further RWA actions, yes, we might have front-loaded or accelerated, but we still expect the second part of the SME support factor and potential benefit from external ratings.

Then to your residual NII, overall, for the full year, it is in line with what we overall expect between the EUR 0 and EUR 200 million. It was more pronounced now at Q4, and that was specifically in ALM. It was higher money market results, and this includes also the economic hedges or currency swaps we use for our non-euro funding. So this was more pronounced in Q4 because there was more volatility in the FX. And this is the normal sort of balance between cross-currency swaps where you book in NII and FX swaps in other income. And we do expect some of that to reverse in Q1.

The next question comes from Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux.

So the first question is actually to come back on risk-weighted assets. You've got now EUR 135 billion end of '25. You target EUR 145 billion by end of '28. Is your EUR 145 billion still up to date? Or you think there's maybe upside to that number? I mean, lower risk-weighted assets potentially and lower risk-weighted assets outlook for '28 based on your strong achievements.

On the calibration of the distribution for '26, so if you run the -- you take NIBC, you take out the seasonality, you have some capital generation, you could end up '26 at 15.5% CET1 ratio. So the calibration, will that be exactly on 100% of net profit? Or could that be potentially higher at the end of '26?

And just on other income, it's a bit weaker also linked to the private equity revaluation this quarter. Do you have still a kind of EUR 100 million quarterly run rate for other income?

Thank you, Benoit. I think on -- I would say, all of the above, I would say we are not changing the guidance and the indications we gave at our CMD 2.5 months ago. So yes, our RWA trajectory is good.

We have, I think, moved fast. And at the same time, as we shared, there is also some seasonality in these figures. And there is also some capital headroom we have agreed for Corporate Bank for additional profitable growth. So we are moving fast at the beginning, but this is -- that doesn't lead us to change our guidance in terms of final RWAs for '28, just to make things clear.

And the same applies to our distribution policy. The fact that we start the year with -- and of the strategic plan with a strong capital position gives us confidence for our distribution policy of up to 100%, and we are not changing our policy, certainly not 2.5 months after our CMD. So there's no change in that.

You take the question, Ferdi, on other income.

Yes, Benoit, I know the around EUR 400 million, yes, if you strip out volatile items and you look at history, that is roughly right. If you look overall for the full 2025, the impact was specifically from economic hedges and hedge ineffectiveness at ALM at EUR 74 million negative.

And also now for the first quarter, we had some impact specifically related to our equity participation portfolio of around EUR 50 million. There were also this year, a few one-offs in there, for example, fair value revaluation of loans within the mortgage portfolio as announced in Q3. So you're right, the EUR 400 million, if you average it over the last few years, but we don't provide any specific guidance for other income.

The next question comes from Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs International.

Two questions from me. The first is a follow-up really to Benoit's and Giulia's earlier questions. So just to stick on capital. Just to sort of get some clarity on this. Should we really think that 100% is the hard ceiling? I appreciate at the Capital Markets Day, you said you intend to distribute up to 100% of net profits. And then you said in a scenario where our quarter 1 remains significantly above 13.75%, additional distributions could be considered subject to reg approval. Should we now just actually think it's really a hard ceiling at 100%?

And if that is the hard ceiling at 100%, and clearly, we're already well above the 13.75% on pro forma, there's already the integration of how the closing of NIBC. You said there's no M&A right now. Growth and cost optimization is already in the plan. Given all of those, it's going to be difficult to see how we do comfortably get down to 13.75%. So in that context, could you commit to the ROE being above 12% irrespective of where you end up on CET1? That's the first question.

And then second, consensus commercial NII is EUR 6.6 billion for '26 and the headline cost consensus is EUR 595 million. I appreciate your guidance is on a slightly different perimeter. We can try and bridge between how you guide and how consensus is collected based on how we think about NIBC or the phasing of restructuring.

But could you just tell us whether you're comfortable with those consensus numbers? On my sums, I think you're sort of steering us to a commercial NII number, which is a little bit below EUR 6.6 billion and a cost figure, which is maybe more meaningfully below that EUR 595 million.

Thank you very much for your question. I will let Ferdi bridge the gap on how we look at commercial NII and with the consensus. Let me take your question on capital.

We stick to everything we said at our CMD. So yes, our CET1 target is above 13.75%. Yes, we are committed to a distribution policy throughout the plan of up to 100%. And yes, we will annually review our capital position. And to the answers we gave at the CMD, subject to regulatory approvals because no bank can announce anything in that respect without regulatory approval, we will look at where our capital position stands in comparison with our CET1 target. This is an important one.

We are also committed and confident that we will reach the above 12% ROE by 2028. This is also a very strong and firm commitment. So I wouldn't call the up to 100 a hard ceiling throughout the plan, but what I'm just saying is that we gave you a clear indication 2.5 months ago, that was yesterday at our CMD on how we look at things. We are happy with the progress we are making. So we think we have a very strong start in the plan. So this is a positive, but we are not changing what we shared with you at our CMD.

Yes, Chris, on NII, for me, it's difficult to comment on consensus expectation. I will check with the IR team. But in our guidance of EUR 6.4 billion commercial NII, we have not included investments and divestments as there, the timing is still unknown. Expectation is we can close NIBC in the second half of the year. And the NII for 6 months, if you look at the account of NIBC, is roughly EUR 160 million. So I'm not sure if that explains part of the difference.

The other part might be in our more conservative assumption on the pass-through on interest-bearing deposits, where in our assumption, we have taken into account a full 100% pass-through. And with the recent steepening of the curve, some might become a bit more positive. But as we said before, it's wait and see and the replicating effect will be more '27, '28 and '26.

The next question comes from Alberto Artoni from Intesa Sanpaolo.

I just have one question on the cost of risk. Could you please give us more color? Is my understanding correct that the slightly higher cost of risk this quarter compared to the previous one is mostly due to a limited number of corporate files and actually, the trend remains very supportive with very good indication of asset quality for the firm. Is that correct? Could you please give us more color on the asset quality dynamics?

Thanks. Your understanding is correct, and I will let Serena give you more color.

Thanks, Alberto, for the question. Indeed, we booked EUR 70 million impairments that is mainly related to individual files across many sectors, across geographies and they were partially offset by some management overlays releases. So when I look at the entire credit portfolio, it's still really strong, and we still believe that we have a very solid performance and progressively going towards our through-the-cycle cost of risk.

The next question comes from Anke Reingen from RBC.

Just a small follow-up questions, please. On the NII, you mentioned the headwind from divestments. Can you -- I'm sorry if I missed it, but did you quantify those? And then -- sorry, just a small other one on other commercial NII. The previous guidance was not other NII, it was EUR 0 to EUR 200 million. Given the comments you made, should we be thinking more towards the lower end given the reversal of the Q4 strength?

And then just lastly, on the mix of extra distributions, everything above the 50%, how are you thinking about the mix in terms of cash dividend and share buybacks? I realize there's a withholding tax element. But aside from it, how are you thinking about the mix?

Thank you very much. I will let Ferdi guide you through NII, I think probably the point you have on divestment refers to Alfam, if I...

Yes, Anke, that is Alfam. Also, we expect around Q3, the full year NII of Alfam last year has been around EUR 60 million. So just to take that into account in the mix, that has not been part of our overall guidance for this year.

And on the mix of our distribution, as we shared, the additional distribution we are announcing today is basically evenly split between EUR 250 million in cash dividends and EUR 250 million in share buyback. The way we look at it is also indeed by taking into account the impact of the Dutch dividend withholding tax. So this is really how we how we plan it. If you want more color on that and how the Dutch dividend withholding tax is calculated, I can let Ferdi dig into that because it's one of his favorite topics. But basically, we are, I would say, making sure that this is an optimized mix.

Yes. So we don't specifically guide for this. And as Marguerite says, it's a bit complicated for this call the underlying dynamics, but the impact of potential tax has increased with an increasing share price. So increasing our cash distribution may reduce the risk of not meeting the cash hurdle of a 7-year average. So this is -- we take this more into account, but we don't specifically guide upfront what the mix will be between cash and share buyback.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Farquhar Murray from Autonomous.

Two questions, if I may. Firstly, just coming back to the RWA point, just on the point of detail. Is it fair to conclude that you're now likely to exceed the RWA optimization target outlined at the CMD? And I ask that because if there is another EUR 1.5 billion at least from the SME support factor still to come on top of the EUR 4.2 billion this quarter, then I think we're looking towards more like EUR 6 billion rather than EUR 5 billion. And if so, what's going better? Or are you suggesting something reverses within that bucket?

And then secondly, what's driving the margin pressure in mortgages that you're citing? And I ask that because in a way, some peers aren't really referencing that. I just wondered if it's specific to you and whether you could give us a sense of magnitude.

And then very finally, just one point of detail, if it's at all possible. Could you give us a ballpark sense of the withholding tax threshold? Or is it too difficult to actually frame that at the present?

Thank you very much. I will let Ferdi answer your questions first. He will take you through the various buckets of our RWA trajectory, then the mortgage margin and then how we look at the dividend withholding tax. Ferdi, you start with RWA.

Yes, Farquhar, overall optimization in the specific bucket within Corporate Bank was EUR 3 billion because part of the SME support factor is part of personal and business banking. So yes, there is still further upside. There's some front-loading. But as I said before, we're also looking at additional optimization, for example, sourcing external ratings. And the second part was...

Margin pressure...

Yes, the margin pressure in mortgages, we expect that to continue. Number one, what we do see here is that almost 70% of the inflow is either Dutch-guaranteed mortgages or low LTV. And of that, the margins are lower, but the overall ROE are higher because it's less capital against it.

Number two, what we have seen is LTVs have come down because we automatically adjust the risk premium if you get into a lower LTV bucket. And we also still see some outflow from higher-yielding mortgages. So overall, our expectation is that roughly EUR 8 billion growth last year. We expect the growth to continue, but it is offset or almost more than offset with our current expectations on margin development.

Yes. And the last question, Ferdi, but I don't know if we can get more specific into the breakdown between share buyback and...

No, Farquhar, as I said, that's very difficult. There's always a point in time where you try to optimize this, and you always need to have a forward-looking view on this and many things play in the mix. You're just looking at a 7-year average cash. And if you do a share buyback, if you pay less cash in a certain year than the average, then what you put in the share buyback, you need to pay the 17.75 withholding tax over that. So we're not guiding on that. This just reduces the risk our share buyback will be subject to dividend withholding tax.

I'm not asking for a guide on the mix. That's totally understandable. I'm just asking whether you can give us a sense of the actual threshold number at all in terms of how much cash you move in a year...

Yes. Okay. Farquhar, I have the spreadsheet in front of me because I always keep track of that. But this can be picked up by Investor Relations after the call because it's more complicated, you need to strip out the highest and the lowest of the average 7 years. So let's do that after the call.

There are no more questions at this time. I will now hand the word back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Well, we thank you very much for attending our call this morning, and we wish you all a very good day. Bye-bye now.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for the ABN AMRO Capital Markets Day and the presentation of our new strategic plan and our financial targets. My name is John Heijning, Head of Investor Relations. Our presentation today is a hybrid one, and we are pleased to welcome those of you with us in person in our own offices here in Amsterdam as well as everyone joining us online.

Our agenda will last approximately 3 hours in total. We will start with an overview of our new strategy from our CEO, Marguerite Berard. We will then have 3 presentations from our Chief Commercial Officers responsible for our client units: Personal and Business Banking presented by Andri Frethil; Wealth Management presented by Choy van der Hof; and Corporate Banking presented by Dan Dorner. We will then take a short break, after which our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager, will take you through our financials in more detail. We will finish with a Q&A session. Our aim is to finish the event by 5:00 p.m. But now it's my great pleasure to introduce Marguerite to the stage to present our new strategy. Marguerite?

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining our Capital Markets Day today. A warm welcome to those of you in the room as well as everyone online. I'm here with my team, and we are very pleased to present our 2028 strategy. I am going to give you an overview. Henri, Choy and Dan will then explain how this will be deployed across our 3 client units before [indiscernible] dives deeper into the financials.

Our strategy is made of 3 priorities: grow profitably, rightsize our cost base and optimize capital allocation. These priorities build on the decisive actions we have already taken in 2025. These include our intended acquisition of NIBC, cost steering that has reduced FTEs by over 1,000, over EUR 7 billion of risk-weighted asset improvements and shareholder distributions totaling EUR 1.4 billion. This progress gives me confidence in ABN AMRO's potential and our ability to fully unlock it.

The execution of our new strategy will be supported by 4 key enablers: our technology and data leadership, our risk management strength, people where we are building a high-performing workforce, and our commercially focused sustainability approach. By focusing on our 2028 strategic priorities, we will deliver our 5 financial targets. By 2028, we will generate a return on equity of at least 12%, up from 9.5% today. And we will have a cost/income ratio of 55% or less, down from more than 60%.

Our plan is much more than a cost story. We will grow profitably and expect to generate income of over EUR 10 billion by 2028 from both organic growth and our recent acquisitions. We will also decrease the amount of capital allocated to our corporate bank from around 58% today to around 50%. Finally, we are targeting a CET1 ratio above 13.75% and expect a shareholder payout of up to 100% of capital generated over '26-'28 period.

These targets are ambitious and achievable. The targets we are presenting today will be delivered, thanks to levers within our control. Our financial trajectory is grounded in robust assumptions and business cases that we have developed internally as a leadership team. Although our focus is on the coming 3 years, these 3 strategic priorities are fully aligned with our 5 long-term ambitions. We will strengthen our position in the Dutch retail market. We will become a top 5 private bank in Europe. We support family wealth and businesses. We will drive growth from European transitions, and we will sustain our global top 3 position in clearing.

Everything we present today, everything we have done in the past 6 months and everything we will do in the coming years ties back to these ambitions. Consistency and discipline are nonnegotiables for me. If a strategic action does not align with our ambitions, we will not do it.

Our new strategy builds on our core strengths. We have 200 years of banking heritage and trust. The ABN AMRO brand is recognized as one of the strongest in the industry. This level of longevity is only possible through a relentless commitment to adaptation and innovation.

Today, our industry-leading technology and digital capabilities allow us to serve over 5 million customers from just 26 branches, always with a premium touch that we are known for. Through our digital challenger brands, we are reaching younger generations. One example is our payment business, [indiscernible], now used by 10 million customers. It is even a word in the Dutch dictionary. When it comes to clients, we have a robust foothold in the most valuable market segments. We have 1 million affluent clients and a leading Northwest European franchise in wealth management. This is where all banks want to be.

In Corporate Banking, we also draw on transition expertise in key sectors, including energy, mobility, digital and defense. These are the key transitions in Europe for which we are ideally positioned across the continent. And we have a global leadership in clearing. Finally, after another year with 0 cost of risk, we have one of the strongest balance sheets in the European banking space. All this creates a powerful growth platform. The core of this platform is our 3 client units. Each one is powerful in its own right, but the beauty of our model is that together, they are much more than the sum of the parts. These businesses are highly complementary, and there is potential for greater collaboration to generate growth. Between Personal and Business Banking and Wealth Management, we can upstream more clients to higher-value segments, capture next-generation clients and better leverage shared platforms and digital capabilities. Between Wealth Management and Corporate Banking, our focus is on serving family businesses and entrepreneurs, driving client acquisition and increasing cross-selling.

Dual relationships like these mean higher client satisfaction, increased client loyalty, higher retention rates and longer customer life cycles.

I also want to mention the strength of our core Dutch markets, 1 of only 7 AAA-rated countries in Europe. As a banker from France, I can tell you this is a very comfortable position. The Dutch economy has consistently outperformed the EU since the pandemic and is expected to continue to do so. ABN AMRO has almost 1/5 of Dutch mortgages, and our intended acquisition of NIBC strengthens this position. We are also the undisputed market leader in wealth and have leading positions with SMEs and corporate clients.

We also have an opportunity to capitalize on wider market trends and macro tailwinds from the great intergenerational wealth transfer, increased defense and infrastructure investments in Europe, the commercial ESG opportunity as well as a technological revolution.

When it comes to technology in banking, we are embracing AI to improve client services and reduce costs. A future where our clients' AI agents interact with the bank's AI agents is years rather than decades away. These are all exciting opportunities for ABN AMRO.

When I came on board earlier this year, my first priority was to take a close look at the bank. I also held a reverse roadshow to hear directly from our investors. It was clear that we needed to take action on cost and capital. I heard you, I agree with you, and this is what you will see in our plan. On this slide, you can see the progress of our financial metrics since 2021. But we are still behind others, and there is a significant opportunity to go much further than where we are today.

One of these areas is costs. Quarter-by-quarter, we are seeing the first results of our 2025 cost steering efforts. We have reduced our headcount by over 1,000 FTEs, thanks to tighter hiring controls. We have also significantly cut on our consultancy spend. Over the past years, many regulatory programs and projects have required attention. They are now nearing completion. There is more to do, and this is why rightsizing our cost base is one of the strategic priorities for this plan. This will ensure we are competitive, faster and can invest in growth areas.

We are also at a turning point on capital. The increase in our risk-weighted assets since 2021 has been a topic for many of you. In 2025, we first stabilized and then started to reduce our risk-weighted assets. We did this by solving data issues and through active portfolio steering. These efforts have resulted in a EUR 7 billion reduction so far this year. We have made some difficult decisions, whether that is selling lower returning activities like our stake in French life insurance business, MufriesV, or winding down our international asset-based finance activities. We have also finalized the standardization of our model landscape, and we are in the Basel IV era. Again, there is more to do to optimize capital allocation, particularly at our Corporate Bank, and Dan will go into more details later.

Finally, given our strong capital ratio and expected capital generation over the next 3 years, we see a clear opportunity to improve returns to shareholders.

With these elements in mind, let's move to the details of our new strategy and our 3 priorities for 2028. Let's start with grow profitably. In retail banking, we will grow by strengthening our position in the Dutch market. We are currently #2 in mortgages for new production. Our intended acquisition of NIBC reinforces a strong position. We will build even deeper client relationships. Here, our premium touch is key to delivering real value. In her presentation of PNBB, Henry will show how our digital challenger brands are supporting our longer-term growth by attracting a younger clientele.

We will also grow with our Private Bank, which is part of our Wealth Management division. We have a 35% market share in the Netherlands. But for several years, we have been punching below our weight on growth compared to the rest of the market. We see strong potential with entrepreneurs and [indiscernible] clients and improved conversion to higher fee products. We have already increased commercial efforts, thanks to back-office improvements that give our banker much more time to spend with clients. The number of weekly client meetings has doubled this year, and both client satisfaction as measured by our NPS and net new assets have increased. In Q3 alone, net new assets stood at EUR 4.3 billion.

In Germany, our focus is on the integration of HAL and consolidating our strong #3 position. By 2028, we will grow client assets to a total of EUR 335 billion, further enhancing our fee income and scale. We will also grow profitably, thanks to our leadership, with family wealth and businesses. I meet at least one client every day, and I can tell you that family-owned businesses are ABN AMRO's sweet spot. This is a great asset because these family-owned businesses are the backbone of the economy in Northwestern Europe. As part of our strategic plan, we will increase the number of dual client relationships, building on the strength of our Wealth Management and Corporate Bank divisions to generate more valuable and longer-term client relationships. We've made progress in this area in recent years, but there is much more to come.

We also plan to invest in our clearing business, focusing on our existing clients and further diversifying our businesses. Clearing is an established leader and holds a global top 3 position. For ABN AMRO, clearing is an excellent business that diversifies our activities and provides healthy low-risk returns.

Moving to our second priority, rightsizing our cost base. We are transforming our organization from top to bottom to reach a cost/income ratio below 55% in 2028. We are rebalancing our teams towards commercial activities and centralized capabilities. In total, we will reduce the number of FTEs by 5,200 by 2028 compared to 2024, including recent acquisitions. We are fully committed to supporting those affected with a robust social plan, offering financial support and assistance in finding new opportunities. Ferdi will take you through our FTE trajectory, and you will see that while our clear focus is rightsizing, these efforts will create stronger foundations to reallocate resources to growth.

We are also radically simplifying our operations, driving efficiency by reducing the number of entities and integrating asset-based finance and our mortgage subsidiary within the main bank. All of these factors are within our control, and we are confident in our ability to deliver against these objectives.

Another important lever on cost is technology. ABN AMRO is a top 3 player in Europe when it comes to technology and a recognized AI leader. We are simplifying our IT, reducing the number of applications and increasing the use of APIs and standardized tools. Thanks to our IT investments since 2023, we have successfully decommissioned over 700 applications with a target of 1,000 in 2028. AI is a key driver of efficiency. For us, AI is about the collective positive impact of numerous enhancements to how we operate and best serve our clients. Our client assist voice bot for card subsidiary ICS was referenced as an exemplary use case in a recent Gartner report. We already have 25 high-impact Gen AI use cases in production. These include Leni, an AI assistant that prefills credit proposals by extracting relevant information from uploaded documents, saving around 1/3 of the time spent on each of the file. We have identified more than 100 use cases that will be successfully embedded in our business during the planned horizon. To reiterate, banks that will win in the next phase are those that are embracing AI at scale, and we will be a winner.

Moving to capital allocation, where our focus is reallocating capital to activities that generate a higher return on equity. This means redeploying capital from Corporate Banking into Wealth Management and Personal and Business Banking. As a result, we will reduce the RWAs allocated to the Corporate Bank to around 50% of the total in 2028.

On the technical side, we are generating RWA relief by improving our underlying data quality, and we expect to implement the SME support factor in the coming quarters. We estimate this RWA optimization could support a EUR 5 billion reduction over the plan horizon. We will also improve client selection and apply strict criteria for new business in the Corporate Bank. This client selection framework will further reduce RWAs by at least EUR 4 billion.

By tackling risk-weighted assets in this way, we have a platform to deliver attractive shareholder returns.

In terms of our capital framework, our target CET1 ratio is above 13.75%, reflecting the most recent SREP letter we received from the ECB. We commit to returning at least 50% of future net profits in the form of cash dividends and will perform a capital assessment annually with our Q4 results. Given our strong capital ratio and expected capital generation over the plan period, we see a clear opportunity to further improve our payout going forward. In simple terms, there are 4 avenues to deploy capital: organic growth, cost programs, share buybacks and M&A. The first 2, organic growth and restructuring charges are already fully embedded in the plans we are presenting today. Across financial years '26 to '28, we expect to generate capital of at least EUR 7.5 billion, and our aim is to deploy up to 100%.

From an M&A perspective, our key focus is on the integration of acquisitions that we have recently closed or announced. Any additional M&A activity would need to meet the same discipline criteria as these transactions and must always create shareholder value.

In short, we expect our plan to deliver attractive shareholder returns.

We have talked you through our strategic priorities. Let's now look at the 4 enablers that will underpin our success, starting with technology. Like all banks, our technology expenditure has been weighted towards maintenance and regulatory programs. These activities represented around 85% of our tech investment spend in 2024. Thanks to our efforts to simplify our IT landscape, we can now materially reduce the resources allocated to maintenance and noncommercial activities. Under our new plan, our goal is to increase the share allocated to commercial initiatives to more than 40%. As I mentioned earlier, we are one of the front runners on AI in this industry. Our Gen AI chatbot, Ana, already handles 140,000 client conversations per month, allowing our teams to focus on higher-value commercial interactions with our clients. Our technology is also driving rapid innovation and helping us roll out new propositions with a shorter time to market. Our neobank boot was built and rolled out in less than a year, thanks to the efficiency, flexibility and resilience of our technology.

Technology is also critical to maintaining high availability and trust, and we work hard to perform above industry standards. Our consistently high [indiscernible] score means that we are in the top 10% in European banking. Next, risk management, which is a core strength of our bank. We will maintain our high-quality balance sheet and are lowering our through-the-cycle cost of risk from 15 to 20 basis points to 10 to 15 basis points. We will continue to focus on our core low-risk Dutch and Northwest European businesses with stable economies, low geopolitical risk and low expected defaults. At the same time, we are diversifying income through global markets and tiering with distinct return hurdles.

Next, our people. We are on a path to build a high-performing and future-proof workforce. We are actively investing in critical skills with a focus on data, digital and AI. We are already recognized as a top employer in this area, and our progress means that we have surpassed our peers in what we offer while our efforts are already fueling innovative solutions. We are also strengthening performance management and accountability. This starts at the top, where we are reducing our extended leadership team and have rotated 1 in 6 senior leadership positions. At the same time, our transformation requires tough choices that have consequences for the composition of our workforce. We fully recognize the impact this has and are fully committed to managing this transition with transparency and care. We recently agreed an extension of our social plan until 2029 with our unions, which creates clarity for staff about how we approach the transition and the safety net that they will be provided.

In short, our people strategy is a performance strategy, powering growth, innovation and value creation for our clients and our shareholders.

Our fourth enabler is sustainability, where we are shifting from broad ambition to more impactful delivery. Sustainability has been part of ABN AMRO's DNA for many years, allowing us to adapt our commitments, including the bank's climate plan and emission targets. We have a EUR 10 billion renewable financing target for 2030. Based on our current trajectory, we expect to reach more than EUR 8 billion by 2028.

It's almost time to hand over to my colleagues to take you through how our group priorities will be delivered within each business. Let me quickly share the highlights. First, Personal and Business Banking. Profitable growth will come from leveraging our proven digital capabilities and strengthening our position in core projects. This will be accelerated by NIBC adding scale to our platform with an expected return on capital of 18%. Our #1 priority here is to rightsize our cost base, and we expect a cost/income ratio of below 55%. Having allocated EUR 1 billion of capital to NIBC acquisition, we are targeting a return on equity of over 25% in 2028.

In Wealth Management, our priority is profitable growth, and we are targeting an 8% to 10% increase in client assets per year. Key client growth areas will be female and next-gen clients as well as proactive support for entrepreneurs in close cooperation with our corporate bank. On top of this, we have opportunities to improve our cost/income ratio and profitability as we unlock the full synergy potential from the integration of HAL. And finally, Corporate Banking. Here, the priority is profitability. We will reduce the amount of RWAs allocated to CB from EUR 88 billion in 2024 to EUR 78 billion in 2028. Within Corporate Banking, we will drive increased profitability through active portfolio management, focusing on dual clients and growing our clearing business. We are committed to deliver an improved ROE of 11%.

In conclusion, we have a clear focus for the next 3 years with our 3 priorities: grow profitably, rightsize our cost base and optimize capital allocation. By growing profitably, we will improve our return on equity to at least 12% in 2028. We will continue to rightsize our cost base, resulting in a cost/income ratio below 55% by 2028. And we will further optimize our capital allocation, assigning more capital to higher ROE businesses. Building on our strengths, I am confident we will achieve these priorities and rise to the bank we want to be. This plan was developed by the leadership team presenting to you this afternoon as well as Carsten Dignner, our Chief Innovation and Technology Officer; as well as Séanaioavanti, our Chief Risk Officer, who are with us today. This team is committed to the bank and fully focused on the delivery of our plan. We have been working together very effectively for the past 6 months and have already made significant progress. I want to tell them that I'm very proud to be part of this team, and I am confident in our ability to build on this momentum and to achieve our 2028 targets. Thank you for your attention. I will now hand over to [indiscernible] to present our retail business.

Thank you, Marguerite. My name is [indiscernible]. As the Chief Commercial Officer for Personal and Business Banking, I am pleased to share with you today how we will contribute to the group's profitable growth while rightsizing our cost base. In short, we will do this by strengthening our position in the Dutch market, accelerated by our intended acquisition of NIBC, driving mortgage deposit and fee growth, enhancing operational efficiencies and optimizing our organizational setup.

First, let me introduce Personal and Business Banking as we are today. As a business, we deliver strong capital generation, accounting for around 50% of group profit and an attractive return on equity of over 20%. The digitalization of our service model is a key driver of cost efficiency for our business. As Marguerite said, we now operate with 26 branches and provide a complete digital service to 5 million clients. 97% of our mortgage advisory consultations are via video, and our mobile apps are highly rated. We have a growing market position in the Netherlands with robust footholds in high-value segments like affluent and medical. This is reflected in our 25% market share for high-end mortgages, roughly 6 percentage points higher than our overall mortgage market share. All these elements are reflected in the income we generate from each client, which is 1.7x higher than the industry average, demonstrating that we are attracting the right clients and serving them well.

Affluent clients are also a powerful feeder for our Wealth Management business. In fact, around 500 personal banking clients transition to wealth every year, accounting for around EUR 1 billion in assets under management. And 60% of our SME clients also personally bank with us. One reason for this success is our premium touch. I'll say more about this later.

Let's first look at our financial performance. We have delivered profitable growth in mortgages. Deposits have also seen steady growth, up 3% per year since 2021, in line with the market. Our average annual fee growth of 11% is higher than the Dutch market, which is at 8%. This double-digit growth comes from various products and is partly driven by the recovery of the credit card market post-COVID. Fee growth has also been supported by the introduction of tailored packages for our business clients and an increase in package pricing for personal clients. Normalized interest rates have resulted in a significant improvement in both our cost-income ratio and return on equity. Our continued digitalization of our service model has also been a supporting factor here. Overall, Personal and Business Banking is a strong capital generation for the group with an ROE of over 20%, and we plan to improve this even further.

Let's take a closer look at our strong digital capabilities and premium touch, which are key to our distinctive market position. We are leveraging our digitalized service model to enhance personalization. Digital is our primary customer channel, driving 87% of sales, but is always integrated with easy access to human expertise. We are also expanding our use of gen AI in customer-facing channels. As Marguerite said, our chat bot, Anna, handles nearly 140,000 customer conversations per month, freeing up time for our specially trained and certified advisers to better serve clients that have greater accessibility needs or for higher-value interactions.

We also continue to focus on increased personalization and more proactive interactions with 1.3 million customers opting in for real-time budget insights. These digital strengths are highly effective when combined with our premium touch and expertise. In the affluent segment, we have nearly 1 million customers, a figure that is growing by around 50,000 clients per year. For these clients, we have a tailored offering called Preferred Banking. Here, we leverage the bank's deep wealth management expertise and offer direct access to experienced and dedicated advisers. Our customers value this highly as demonstrated by Preferred Banking's high transactional Net Promoter Score. We will also expand this offering with premium debit cards and family-focused wealth transfer solutions, drawing from our expertise from wealth management that Choy will present.

Lastly, we are winning clients in focus areas such as SMEs as well as the medical profession, where we have a 35% market share. We have a unique and highly appreciated life cycle proposition for medical professionals. Here, we are supporting these clients from their time and students all the way to retirement with tailored products, services and solutions.

Before discussing our 2028 ambitions for Personal and Business Banking, let me highlight how our intended NIBC acquisition strengthens our Dutch retail banking position by adding scale to our core mortgages and deposits business. The acquisition is a unique opportunity to reinforce our top 2 position in the mortgage market, adding EUR 28 billion in high-quality Dutch mortgages, of which half is off balance. These mortgages are mainly residential with very low arrears. NIBC has an attractive originate to manage franchise, which can be used to transfer long-dated fixed interest mortgages to a third party. The NIBC label has a strong presence in rural regions. This is highly complementary to ABN AMRO's portfolio as we typically have stronger positions in the Western urban regions of the Netherlands. There is also a high degree of compatibility in offerings and client profiles, making it an easy fit in our organization and infrastructure. This makes us confident to realize significant cost synergy potential from efficiencies of scale.

The fact that NIBC is using the same mortgage administrator simplifies synergy potential. NIBC also has an attractive savings platform, serving over 300,000 clients. A relatively high share of their client base is Affluent, our own focus segment. NIBC has a strong savings client base in the Netherlands, Germany and in Belgium, matching the geographical footprint of [indiscernible], our next-generation investment platform. So we are very happy with this opportunity, providing geographical expansion and broader product offering with low execution risk.

Taking this into consideration, now let's move to our 2028 priorities. We will grow profitably by further strengthening our core product positioning with a targeted annual growth rate of between 5% and 6% across both mortgages and deposits. This includes a 2 percentage point benefit from NIBC. In mortgages, we have a #2 position and our market share of new production improved to 19% in the third quarter of 2025. Importantly, we achieved this while maintaining strict price discipline. Almost 75% of new mortgages are sold by the intermediary channel, where we continue to expand our strong network. Our balanced multi-label presence enables us to strategically position ourselves in different market segments. In deposits, we will focus on refreshing our offerings with new products, including short maturity deposits as well as loyalty options such as direct quarterly savings and notice period accounts. We are exploring options to combine the propositions of Books and NIBC, providing us with a challenger platform and potential to differentiate in pricing.

Let's stay with our challenger brands and take a look at the future. With the rise of digital native generations, banking is changing. We have 4 complementary brands with proven state-of-the-art technology platforms that capture this next generation of banking clients. With over 10 million users, 60% who are non-ABN AMRO customers, Tikkie demonstrates our proven ability to deliver innovations at scale with a fast time to market. The next step is to further monetize Tikkie through additional services whilst growing its current advertising income and growing the number of paying business clients. [indiscernible], our neobroker, has demonstrated its ability to quickly bring innovative ideas to the market. It was the first in the Benelux to introduce a follow-on public offering opportunity to our retail investors and the first in Europe to offer fractional shares and ETFs. And with our neobank Bot, we went from concept to launch in just 1 year by building a state-of-the-art technology platform with smart connections to the bank. We are excited about the potential to grow but exponentially over the coming years, given the very positive market reaction.

Finally, Nuten combines fintech innovation with banking expertise, empowering SME entrepreneurs with fast, simple and personalized financing. Nuten is a leading fully digital fintech lender with a time to cash of less than 24 hours. Since its launch, we have provided more than EUR 1 billion in financing. Almost half of its customers are non-ABN AMRO customers. Our ambition is to increase the portfolio by a factor of 4, accelerated by the migration of existing ABN AMRO clients to our cost-efficient new [indiscernible] platform for SMEs. Thanks to these challenger brands, we will capture a meaningful share of the fast-growing neobanking space.

Moving now to costs. We can further enhance cost and operational efficiencies, thanks to our strong digital offering, new technologies like gen AI and increased outsourcing and offshoring. We have already significantly reduced the number of FTEs over the past years. We have rightsized our client-facing staff, thanks to our reduced number of branches and digitalized services, while at the same time, substantially improving our Net Promoter Score. Customer care and operations and anti-money laundering account for a substantial part of the cost base of Personal and Business Banking. We are targeting around 35% FTE reduction in these areas by 2028 through efficiencies with operational management and gen AI as well as offshoring.

With a growing number of chatbot conversations now enabled with gen AI as well as continuous digitalization of our high-volume processes, we see a significant decrease in call volumes. A great example of an impactful gen AI application can be found in anti-money laundering, where gen AI now supports our analysts with transaction reviews and client outreach questions. Analysts are also increasingly moving from creating to reviewing case narratives and risk reports when gen AI tools are doing the heavy lifting. We can achieve additional operational efficiency through outsourcing as well as by simplifying our organizational structure.

Let's take a closer look at the opportunities on the next slide. We have already made some clear choices to simplify our organization and optimize the setup of our subsidiaries. As highlighted by Marguerite, all these projects are substantially within our control, giving us confidence in our ability to successfully deliver them and release the associated cost benefit. We have announced that we will rationalize our mortgage brand offering and integrate the mortgage group into the bank. The discontinuation of Moneyou will allow room to include the strong NIBC mortgage label into our core labels next to ABN AMRO and [indiscernible]. The integration of the mortgages group into the bank will make our organization simpler and will reduce costs.

For other subsidiaries, we are making clear choices to improve operating performance. As announced this morning, we will sell our personal loan portfolio to Rabobank, and we'll continue to offer this product to our clients via a strategic partnership with them. For our credit card business, we are investigating outsourcing with specialized partners, reducing costs whilst improving customer service and innovation.

In conclusion, we are strengthening our position in Dutch retail banking while rightsizing our cost base. We are very well positioned to do this, thanks to our digital capabilities and premium touch offering. We are targeting annual growth in mortgages and deposits of 5% to 6%, and we aim to realize this while further rightsizing our cost base, delivering a cost/income ratio of below 55% in 2028. This will be achieved by leveraging technology to further automate our own processes, while at the same time, we are improving the performance of our subsidiaries by making clear choices. The NIBC acquisition and the optimization of the setup of subsidiaries will further improve our cost/income ratio.

In terms of our capital allocation, the group will benefit from growth in mortgages with low RWA density. The acquisition of NIBC allocates around EUR 1 billion of capital to Personal and Business Banking. All combined, we expect to deliver a return on equity of above 25%. Thank you. I will now hand over to Choy to talk about Wealth Management and look forward to take your questions later.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Annie. My name is Choy van der Hooft, and I'm responsible for Wealth Management within ABN AMRO. I'm pleased to share our plans and explain how we're going to grow profitably by increasing our client assets while bringing our cost-income ratio down. We will do this by delivering premium propositions in valuable client segments, accelerating commercially supported by digital solutions and by optimizing our operating model and investment value chain. ABN AMRO supports clients through their entire personal and business life cycle. We have supported family wealth and businesses for over 200 years, leveraging our own strength and those of the wider group. We leverage corporate banking capabilities like lending and advisory and personal banking's digital capabilities to offer a seamless experience. We are a full-service private bank for wealthy individuals, institutions and entrepreneurs, serving them with a holistic approach and a premium touch. Clients appreciate what we do, and this is reflected in our positive Net Promoter Scores, which have risen since 2021, '22 across all markets. We serve 150,000 clients across the region. And as Marguerite said, [indiscernible] is a clear market leader in the Netherlands with a market share of around 35% and EUR 155 billion in assets under management.

In Germany, we have added significant scale with the acquisition of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe, or HAL, putting us in the top 3. In France, we hold a strong niche. Our entrepreneur and Antprisa offering brings together commercial and private banking, supported by our expertise in wealth solutions and family office services. In Belgium, we also have a niche position. In this market, we launched our entrepreneur and [indiscernible] proposition, introduced our ABN AMRO M. Pearson brand and rolled out corporate finance for family-owned businesses.

For both France and Belgium, we have increased our commercial presence in underserved regions, focusing on areas outside of Paris, in France and regions around Brussels. Since 2021, we have grown client assets by 4% a year to reach EUR 239 billion in 2024. Strategically, we have sharpened our positioning by divesting our life insurance business in France and reinvesting in key growth areas. We have harmonized and simplified our products, processes and IT to become more efficient, including our KYC processes, CRM landscape and investment engine. These efforts combined with NII tailwinds have reduced our cost income to below 70% in 2024.

With this strong foundation, we are well positioned for profitable growth and have clear 2028 ambitions that contribute to our long-term vision to become a top 5 European private bank.

Let's take a closer look at our 2028 plan, starting with grow profitably. With an estimated EUR 3.5 trillion in wealth transferring in Europe by 2030, there is a massive opportunity to reinforce our position, and we are proactively targeting our next generation. In 2024 alone, around EUR 3 billion in assets of our clients was transferred, and we successfully retained 90%, well above industry benchmarks. Our proactive NextGen approach helps us to not only retain, but also to originate new client assets. To share a recent example, our proactive NextGen approach helped us to capture EUR 400 million in client assets from our clients that sold a majority shareholding. They trusted us with this mandate because of the intergenerational relationship we have built up, and because we always engage with the client on their long-term plans.

To attract the next generation, we are rejuvenating our product range. We are personalizing investment solutions, providing clients with thematic strategies in areas like technology and health care while rolling out digital assets. We are also diversifying our products. This includes lowering of threshold for private markets and introducing alternative investment asset classes to our discretionary mandates, enabling clients to benefit from asset diversification.

HAL complements us here, thanks to their private markets offering and thematic strategies, which leverage for our clients. Another area of focus is to grow with our female clients. Here, we are training bankers to better recognize their specific needs, and we are offering access to our investments and wealth planning expertise via knowledge building events. We are seeing a strong demand in these areas across all our markets.

We are also increasing our focus on entrepreneurs. We have a strong track record together with the corporate banking, our so-called dual client relationships. We typically see a higher client loyalty on the corporate side for dual client relationships. On average, these clients have 65% of their total corporate banking products with us compared to 50% for mono clients. On the Wealth Management side, we see client loyalty as well. We earn 60% more on these clients versus mono relationships. Even though we are strong, there is more to win, and this is our focus. In the Netherlands, we are strengthening our collaboration with corporate banking to deliver more value to our clients. The same applies the other way around, facilitating wealth management clients with their business goals.

To give you an example, based on our strong relationship with an ultra-high net worth client, we were able to secure a corporate finance mandate for a strategic partnership with a private equity player as well as new wealth management assets. In terms of our markets, in Germany, we are focused on cross-selling and originating new business. We are capitalizing on the client base, commercial teams and offerings that HAL bring to us. In Belgium, we have also improved our offering and positioning, while France's strong expertise and regional expansion will contribute to organic growth. Delivering growth by targeting these valuable client segments will translate into annual net new assets growth of EUR 5 billion to EUR 7 billion in the coming years. Targeting various segments is not the full story. We are also enhancing our commercial effectiveness. We know our clients appreciate our proactive approach, backed by the right expertise and delivered with a premium touch. Clients want to feel special in every interaction, something we consistently ensure. This is reflected in our improving Net Promoter Score of up 14% over the past 4 years. With this strong foundation, we are enhancing our effectiveness, setting our front office up for success. We have already taken the first steps with our net new assets boost campaign, which has attracted deposits into the bank that can be converted into investments. Our campaign has been successful, as Marguerite said, driving EUR 4.3 billion in net new assets year-to-date. And typically, we see a conversion of cash inflows into investments within 6 months. Zooming in on Germany. Here, we are focused on capturing the upside from HAL, expanding our network to 17 locations and over 200 advisers. Growth will also be powered by investing in our digital capabilities. Managing a portfolio today requires constant monitoring, proactive client engagement and consideration of the clients' overall financial situation. Therefore, we will commercially empower our front office, thanks to the rollout of holistic financial planning tools across all markets. By aggregating their positions across all banks, this tool makes it easier to advise all clients across all their positions, leading to a significant productivity improvement. To improve product sales, we are making our core deposits and investments offer more attractive. We will do this by rolling out new products and reducing the cost of existing ones for clients. We are also leveraging AI to free up commercial time and provide real-time insights across all front office functions so we can reach more clients more regularly. By delivering in these areas, we expect our Wealth Management assets to grow by 8% to 10% per year to reach over EUR 335 billion by 2028. Having spent time on profitable growth, now let me move to cost discipline. We will improve our cost-income ratio by growing our income while keeping costs stable.

Stable costs mean that we will absorb the impact of cost inflation. To further simplify our operating model, we will optimize control frameworks and minimize duplications between head office and the local unit functions. We will make our investment value chain more efficient from asset allocation, fund structuring to trade execution. This will enable us to customize our client offering and capture a higher share of wallet by internalizing fees and increasing operational efficiency.

Another priority for us is the integration of HAL, where we are targeting at least EUR 60 million of cost synergies by 2028. We will move to a single operating model across commercial and noncommercial functions. And HAL will be migrated to ABN AMRO platforms, resulting in a decommissioning of more than 40% of current applications in Germany. Targeting income growth while maintaining stable costs, we expect to realize a cost-income ratio of below 60% by 2028.

In conclusion, for Wealth Management, our goal is profitable growth in all markets, supporting our long-term ambition of becoming a top 5 European private bank. We are improving commercial effectiveness and proactively targeting valuable client segments to reach over EUR 335 billion in client assets by 2028. We will do this while simplifying our organization and internalizing value generated in investment value chain to keep our costs stable. In focusing on our 2028 objectives, we will deliver a rejuvenated wealth management that has higher client assets, greater efficiency and creates value for both our clients and our group.

I will now hand over to Dan, who will talk about corporate banking, and I look forward to answering your questions later.

Thank you, Choy, and I'm truly looking forward to our cooperation in service to our joint clients. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dan Dorner, and I am the Chief Commercial Officer for Corporate Banking. As Marguerite mentioned, corporate banking will be a strong contributor to the strategic objectives and long-term ambitions of ABN AMRO. Our focus will be on disciplined capital allocation and profitable growth. Let's take a closer look.

Our corporate bank is built on a strong client franchise with leading product and sector expertise. Today, we served 10,000 mid- to large corporate and institutional clients, predominantly across Northwest Europe. Our client franchise is very much aligned with our long-term ambition of serving and supporting family-owned businesses in our key markets. We are deeply rooted in the Dutch economy, being the main lender to the majority of our clients with a 30% market share for midsized corporates.

We are a trusted adviser to our clients on the back of our in-depth sector knowledge. A recent example in energy transition is our leading financial advisory role for [ Tennet ], a major European electricity grid operator. We were the only Dutch bank on this EUR 9.5 billion capital raising. More broadly, we are recognized for the strength of our advisory practice with family-owned businesses and in relation to sector in transitions. We have proven project finance expertise and hold a top 3 position in Europe for energy and digital transitions. Finally, our Financial Markets clearing business holds a top 3 position globally.

This slide shows the evolution of corporate banking between 2021 and 2024. We have focused our activities, derisked and also strengthened our origination platform. This enabled us to drive higher NII and fees across our European activities and with clearing globally. We have improved our income generation and remained focused on costs. This led to a decline in cost-to-income ratio.

One of our major achievements has been the wind down of our noncore portfolio, reducing risk and focusing our capital and key resources. The success of this project, which I personally led, demonstrates our ability to reallocate capital, make decisions and take our clients and key stakeholders with us. We have also improved our risk management and underwriting criteria, resulting in a solid credit quality with a low cost of risk of just 5 basis points in 2024. All of these actions have laid a strong foundation for the future.

Between 2021 and 2024, risk-weighted assets increased significantly, reflecting credit model simplification. RWAs are now at a turning point, which I will address shortly. We are now focused on optimizing our capital and improving our return on equity. These are the key priorities for our 2028 plan. Corporate Banking RWAs peaked at EUR 88 billion in 2024 and are now at a turning point. We have finalized the simplification of our model landscape. This brought stability and predictability to our capital position and gives us a base to optimize our RWAs going forward.

We have made a strong start and taken decisive actions in the first 9 months of 2025, reducing RWAs with over EUR 3 billion. We have improved our data quality, reduced exposure to nonstrategic and low-returning segments and actively managed our portfolio. This also includes a risk-sharing agreement with the European Investment Bank Group on a EUR 1 billion portfolio, the largest securitization in [ EIB ] history. Whilst we have taken decisive actions already, there is significant further upside. By 2028, we are targeting a total net RWA reduction of EUR 10 billion.

There are two ways by which we will achieve this reduction. Firstly, optimizing risk-weighted assets, where we target an additional EUR 5 billion reduction. We have identified and planned for additional data quality improvements. This will directly enhance our profitability without impacting our income generation.

Secondly, we expect a further reduction of EUR 5 billion from portfolio optimization. Our disciplined client selection framework will account for at least EUR 4 billion of this reduction. We will review the profitability of the full client relationship and where we do not see a path to a sustainable profitable level, we will exit the exposure. The balance will come from the continued reduction of RWAs in nonstrategic activities, mainly by refocusing asset-based finance. We also want to grow, and we plan to invest EUR 3 billion RWAs in our clearing business. I will come back to that later.

In addition, we are creating room for profitable growth through active portfolio management. We will deploy a consistent originate and distribute strategy with a focus on significant risk transfers, partnerships and portfolio transactions. For example, we are currently finalizing an SRT transaction for our large corporate exposure, and we'll share more details once the transaction is finalized. We are reallocating actively capital to sectors and products where we are competitive, we have the product and structuring expertise, and also we have a proven ability to capture market share.

With the capital allocated to corporate banking, we are targeting a return on equity of 11% in 2028, a 2 percentage point increase over 2024. We will reallocate up to EUR 8 billion in RWAs to higher-yielding fee-enhancing and capital-light products and segments, while we will stay aligned with our strategic risk appetite. As the chart on the slide shows, our specialized lending, markets and clearing segments currently account for 40% of Corporate Banking's capital. As a result of the actions we are taking, we expect this to increase to around half by 2028, directly improving our profitability.

We will invest in clearing and allocate an additional EUR 3 billion of RWAs to sustain our top 3 global position, capitalizing on growth in the existing client base, and also diversifying towards corporate clients. [ Clearing ] has delivered strong results in recent years and has a derisked product offering with low capital needs. It will continue to be a key driver of our capital-light fee-enhancing profitable growth. Clearing provides our bank with geographical diversification, countercyclical income, further platform synergies and cross-selling opportunities with other client segments. We will also leverage our leading positions in financing Europe's transitions, focusing on key domains such as energy, digital, mobility and defense, as mentioned by Marguerite earlier.

We will build on our originate and distribute capabilities and continue to partner with investors. An example is the EUR 1.3 billion digital infrastructure transaction we executed earlier in the year, where the quality of our origination was instrumental to the success of the project. Finally, while we will reduce our overall general lending exposure, we will expand our relationships with family-owned businesses.

From my interactions with clients, I see firsthand that dual clients are more loyal, consume more products and provide us with a higher share of their business. For example, we recently closed an advisory transaction and generated EUR 500 million new assets for our Wealth Management franchise. My dialogue with clients is very diverse from engaging with first-generation founders on capital raising, strategic or public market exits, to advising third-generation owners on liquidity and diversifying their family office for passing it on to the next generations. We aim to increase the share of our dual client relationship to 60%.

Next to delivering profitable growth, we will continue to focus on operational efficiency. This will support an improvement of at least 3 percentage points in our cost/income ratio by 2028. In terms of optimizing our organization, we'll deliver efficiencies by streamlining our client service model to their specific needs, fully integrating our core asset-based finance product offering and finally, unlocking platform synergies. For instance, we can boost synergies by internalizing flows between Global Markets, Wealth Management and clearing. Examples include creating a single transaction execution desk that serves all our client segments, Personal Business Banking, Wealth Management and Corporate Banking clients.

Another opportunity is for [ clearing ] to become the single custodian and clearer for ABN AMRO activities, internalizing revenues and further scaling the platform. We are also future-proofing our cost base by scaling AI and technology with a specific focus on lending journeys and key sales processes. For example, we have rolled out an AI-assisted credit application process that reduces the standard case workload with at least 30%, ensuring we give more attention to complex situations. All of these elements will result in an improved cost-to-income ratio of below 50%.

In conclusion, we are a focused corporate bank with a strong client franchise and leading transition, sector and product expertise. Risk-weighted assets for the Corporate Bank have reached a turning point following decisive actions we have taken since mid-2024. We have a tangible plan to reduce RWAs with EUR 10 billion by 2028. We will drive profitability through portfolio management by actively reallocating capital to our institutional offering, sustaining our top 3 position with clearing globally to funding European transitions, and for supporting our family wealth businesses and dual clients. In 2028, our return on equity will increase to 11%, and our cost-to-income ratio will be reduced by at least 3 percentage points.

Thank you. I will now hand over to [ John ] and look forward to hearing your questions later.

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

[Break]

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

Thanks, [ John ], and good afternoon all. And although I know most of you in the audience today, a brief introduction, my name is Ferdinand or, as you've heard [indiscernible] by most [indiscernible], and I'm the CFO of the bank. Marguerite has clearly explained our focus for the next 3 years and our strategic priorities. In the next half hour, I will explain how these priorities support our financial performance and how we will achieve our targets.

Let me repeat the 3 strategic priorities that guide our 2028 financial agenda. Growing profitably, rightsizing our cost base and optimizing capital allocation. Our financial target for '28 are clear and actionable. We are confident that we will deliver on these targets, and we are already taking decisive action that is achieving results.

First, we are aiming for a return on equity above 12%, and we will achieve this by increasing earnings using capital-light products and optimize the use of the bank's capital. We target a cost/income ratio of under 55% and will reduce total cost by simplifying our organization and leveraging technology to drive efficiency. Disciplined capital allocation will result in EUR 10 billion of RWA reduction in the Corporate Bank, freeing up capital for Personal and Business Banking and Wealth Management. At group level, we are reducing RWAs allocated to corporate banking from around 58% to 50%, and we target a core Tier 1 ratio above [ 13.75% ] and aim to return up to 100% of capital generated in 2026 to 2028 to shareholders.

Before I go further in details of our strategic plan, let's look at the macroeconomic assumptions underpinning our 2028 targets. Based on the current outlook of ABN AMRO's Economics Department, we expect annual GDP growth of 1% for the Netherlands. While inflation is trending towards ECB's target level of 2%, it remains slightly above European average.

Looking at the other forecast, we see a robust Dutch economy supported by a strong labor market, government spending and a positive outlook for housing. Interest rate forecast reflect this relative stable outlook. Our current expectation is for the ECB to keep the deposit rate at the current level of 2% for the next 3 years. The 5-year swap rate forecast assumes a similar picture. Rates are expected to be stable for the next 2 years and thereafter increase modestly. In summary, all these indicators point towards a benign macro environment for the coming 3 years.

Turning to our 2028 priorities, starting with [ grow ] profitably. Our recent acquisitions of HAL and the intended acquisition of NIBC are fully aligned with our strategy and will support future growth. [indiscernible] and [indiscernible] described how these transactions strengthen our core franchise. The positive impact of these transactions demonstrates our disciplined approach to M&A. These acquisitions are expected to generate a return on invested capital of over 15% and around 18%, respectively, and they will add 12% to our earnings per share in today's terms.

We have already started, as [indiscernible] mentioned, the integration process of HAL. We have filed for and expect to complete the legal merger in Q2 next year, which will simplify the further integration process. For NIBC, the integration will start after we receive regulatory approval, which is expected in the second half of next year. And as Marguerite already said, our full focus is on successful integration of these transactions. Any potential future M&A must support our strategy, meet our disciplined criteria and create substantial value for shareholders.

Moving to our balance sheet. The growth in our mortgage book is expected to remain strong at 5% to 6% a year through to 2028. This reflects our strong current market share, increasing housing stock in the Netherlands, as well as the planned inclusion of NIBC portfolio. Corporate loan growth is expected between 3% to 5%. The disciplined Corporate Banking client selection framework, which Dan talked about, will result in a reduction of client exposures. However, this will be more than offset by growth in European transition sectors and our focus on lending products that generate a higher return.

Let me spend a minute on the development of our client deposits. Between 2021 and '24, client deposits were broadly flat. Until the summer of '22, interest rates were negative, and we decided to limit deposit inflows. Because at the time, margins were being eroded by the decision to keep client savings rates at 0 for balances up to EUR 100,000. Today, deposits are central to our growth ambitions. We expect this to increase by 6% to 7% a year through to 2028.

[indiscernible] has explained the importance of affluent clients and the role of new products. We also have an interesting opportunity to combine our [indiscernible] broker with NIBC saving products. This will create a cross-border saving and investment platform to tap into additional markets. Within Wealth Management, deposit growth will be key to increasing client assets to at least EUR 335 billion by 2028. As [indiscernible] mentioned, we are targeting 3 valuable client types. Next-generation, female clients and entrepreneurs. And we also have a dedicated focus to convert cash into investment assets, and this links to our fee ambition, which is shown on the next slide.

Between 2021 and '24, fee growth was 5% per annum, largely driven by Personal and Business Banking. Going forward, all client units will contribute to fee growth, adding a further 1 to 2 percentage points to growth. Some of the key initiatives driving this are client assets in Wealth Management increasing to at least EUR 335 billion, introduction of tailored payment packages in [ PNBB ] and growing clearing and capital cross-sell opportunities, as Dan mentioned, in Corporate Banking. It is important to note that underlying fee growth will be higher than the 6% to 7% shown as we will book the costs of SRTs as fee expenses. In our plans, we factor in expenses of approximately EUR 10 million to EUR 12 million for every EUR 1 billion of RWA relief, in line with the current market. This translates in an average of around 7% to 8% cost of capital relief.

Now moving to interest income. Many of you has asked for additional transparency on NII, and this has been with many of you, a recurring topic at our quarterly releases. We have listened to your feedback and are making changes to our NII disclosure. Going forward, we will report on commercial NII, which corresponds to the total NII of the 3 client units. We will also disclose asset and liability margins every quarter in addition to corresponding volumes. Combined, the asset and liability NII amounts to more than 90% of our total NII. The remainder shown here as other commercial NII is mainly from clearing and interest-related fees.

On treasury, we have separated out the predictable result from equity duration and allocated this to the asset margin. In 2025, this amounts to around EUR 500 million, adding around 20 basis points to the asset margin. This leaves some residual NII of up to EUR 200 million, and this is part of the group functions income. This part is more volatile and for example, includes the effects that can occur when client behavior diverges from our assumptions to hedge our liabilities and EUR 160 billion of mortgages.

On the basis of these new disclosures, let me now discuss our NII guidance for the next year. For 2026, our guidance for commercial NII, which comprised of assets and liability NII is around EUR 6.4 billion. This guidance excludes the group function results, which, as I said before, can be up to EUR 200 million. So there is potential upside for our total NII. Liability NII will be higher in '26. We also include the full year whole interest income and assume volume growth, as earlier mentioned, for deposits. Asset NII is expected to decrease slightly due to lower mortgage margins, partly offset by volume growth. Other commercial NII is forecasted at similar levels to 2025. So this is between the EUR 350 million and EUR 400 million. This guidance excludes the intended acquisition of NIBC, which generates around EUR 300 million of NII per year.

Looking beyond '26, we expect commercial NII to increase, thanks to higher liability margins as well as further growth in our deposit volumes. The liability margin trajectory assumes broadly stable margins, except for current accounts. We don't pay interest on current accounts, and therefore, they are interest rate sensitive as the margin changes in line with the replicating yields. Current accounts on average, represent around 25% of client liabilities. We will continue to project replicating income based on forward rates every quarter. You can find this information in the annex of the CMD presentation from today.

Asset NII is expected to remain stable as volume growth for mortgages, as well as corporate loans, is offset mainly by margin pressure on mortgages. As house prices increase and clients pay down on their mortgage, LTVs decline, leading to lower risk premium on our pricing. Another factor is the increased share of NHD mortgages in new production. These protect the client from losses in a for sale. The margin is lower on these mortgages, but so are the capital requirements. Hence, ROE is very healthy. Based on these assumptions, we expect commercial NII of around EUR 7.2 billion in 2028. Clearly, this outcome is dependent on the way interest rates develop and includes around EUR 300 million for NIBC, but excludes any additional NII from group functions.

Moving now to rightsizing our cost base. The planned cost savings for '28 are a cornerstone of our long-term financial plan and are crucial to delivering sustainable shareholder value. For the period '24 to '28, we have identified EUR 900 million of cost savings across 4 categories. First, we plan to realize around EUR 200 million of synergies for HAL and NIBC. Second, we will save around EUR 100 million by simplifying and streamlining our IT. This includes decommissioning applications and moving to a more modular setup. And third, we expect to reduce cost by EUR 200 million through commercial optimization. We have already heard numerous examples from my colleagues on cost reductions, but let me give some more context on these.

This includes rationalization of corporate banking's client service model and optimizing the investment chain in Wealth Management. We are also changing our organizational structure by reducing the number of legal entities, leading to a more efficient operating model. Finally, we target around EUR 400 million of cost savings from further operational efficiency in the fourth category, mainly within group functions. This includes optimizing end-to-end processes, for example, mentioned already the credit chain, as well as outsourcing opportunities like in our credit card business, ICS, as mentioned by [indiscernible]. We also have concrete plans to further automate and digitize many processes while others may be offshore, mainly in the areas of operations and AML.

AI is leading to efficiency gains and is a key enabler of various process optimizations. The possibilities are increasing rapidly, and we see a lot of potential to identify further opportunities down the line. But to be clear, today's cost savings plan does not rely on unproven business cases.

To conclude, in total, we target EUR 900 million of cost savings versus 2024 and expect to realize EUR 100 million of that this year. Our detailed plans and progress to date makes me confident we will deliver on these savings.

Of course, the cost-saving measures we are announcing today will have an effect on our staff, and we're being transparent about the implications of these changes. If we include HAL and NIBC on a pro forma basis, our starting point is 27,500 FTEs. We expect a total net staff reduction of just over 5,000 with half coming from attrition and the remainder through redundancies. This year, we have already achieved 1/5 of this total, so around 1,000, mainly through our strict hiring discipline Marguerite mentioned.

Restructuring provisions are estimated at around EUR 400 million in total to realize this. Our cost-saving programs are carefully planned and phased to maintain organizational stability at all times. This means that restructuring charges will be spread out over time, somewhat higher in the first years and will decline thereafter. We expect to recognize around EUR 40 million of restructuring costs in Q4, taking the total for '25 to around EUR 80 million.

Based on these plans, I will now give you cost guidance for '26 and our trajectory towards '28. Next year, we expect total costs of around EUR 5.6 billion. This includes full year cost for HAL, slightly offset by delivery on some initial cost reductions. This excludes potential costs for NIBC as this will depend on timing of closing the transaction. To bridge the cost development from '24 to '28, we start by rebasing the '24 cost base to account for M&A. Inflation adds around EUR 400 million to the overall base over a 4-year period based on an assumption of 2% per year. Given the EUR 900 million of targeted cost savings I've just outlined, this leads to an absolute cost base of around EUR 5.5 billion by '28. In absolute terms, this is a decrease of 5% versus '24.

This bridge does not show investments. Our current investment budget is around EUR 600 million per year and will stay around this level. Marguerite highlighted how we are shifting resources from regulatory projects and maintenance to commercial projects. So this will free up capacity to enable our growth initiatives over the forecasted period.

Let me now move to our cost/income target. This slide shows the pro forma impact of recent acquisitions before synergies. These are neutral to our cost/income ratio. Combining M&A with the organic growth I have outlined, we expect operating income will surpass the EUR 10 billion in '28. Compared to '24, this corresponds to a CAGR of at least 3%. On cost, I've described how we intend to achieve a cost base of below EUR 5.5 billion by '28, which is a 5% reduction over the plan period. This leads to a positive jaws effect and a cost/income ratio below 55%.

The chart shows how important the rightsizing of our cost base is improving our operating leverage. We are providing a lot of detail on how we're going to achieve this in 3 ways. We're showing an absolute cost target, a cost/income target as well as explicit FTE reductions that underpin these features. We have these under our own control, and I'm confident we can deliver on them. For me, it does not stop by just delivering on cost programs, though. Cost discipline is a continuous process and an essential aspect of our corporate culture that will continue well beyond our '28 planning horizon.

Now turn to our cost of risk. Our long-term through-the-cycle cost of risk has been lowered to 10 to 15 basis points from 15 to 20 basis points, reflecting our high-quality loan book, as well as prudent risk management. We expect the cost of risk to gradually increase to the lower end of our adjusted through-the-cycle guidance. Our strong balance sheet provides the flexibility for selective risk taking where appropriate, supporting profitable growth whilst continuing taking risk cautiously and consciously within our risk appetite.

Moving to return on equity next. This chart shows the improvement at each client unit, cost/income ratio, return on risk-weighted assets and the return on equity. The curve line represents a 12% return on equity. The further to the right of this line, the higher the ROE. The movement shown displays the changes to cost income and margin on RWA for the period '24 to '28. All client units are increasing their ROE towards 28%, improving on both cost efficiency and their return on risk-weighted assets. The improvements in cost income reflect the planned cost savings, as just mentioned.

Acquisitions are an important driver as they add scale at limited additional costs once synergies are fully realized. Only whole is included in this chart were shown here. Increasing deposit income, active capital allocation and growth in fee income are key factors that improve the income of RWA. Therefore, Wealth Management and Corporate Banking are showing the largest improvements on this metric. In absolute terms, our retail business maintains the most profitable business, but wealth is closing in. Combined, these improvements lead to a group return on equity of over 12% by 2028.

Let me now move to risk-weighted assets. Marguerite explained the significant changes we have made to our model landscape and at end of last year, represent a turning point for the bank. Our RWAs will be much more stable going forward. The full phase-in of the Basel IV floor will not impact us and standardized RWAs are not procyclical in the downturn. Dan has explained how we will reduce RWAs in the Corporate Bank. Stricter capital allocation and portfolio optimization will more than offset the expected organic growth. This reduces the amount of capital used by the Corporate Bank to around 50% of the group's total. So overall, our RWAs are set for a small decline in the coming years. This does not include the potential discontinuation of the Dutch mortgage floor, which will be reviewed by the DNB at the end of 2026.

Before I move to our capital framework, I'd like to put the implications of stable RWAs over the coming period in perspective. Looking back at 2022 and '23, we had significant RWA increases due to add-ons mainly related to model simplification as well as the transition to Basel IV. While we maintained a very strong capital position at all times, RWA growth, combined with dividend and share buybacks led to capital depletion. We delayed our '24 capital assessment due to Basel IV implementation and the most recent model simplifications in Q1 this year. However, mid-2024, as you've seen on this graph, was clearly a turning point. RWA increases were limited, bringing to a halt the significant capital consumptions for regulatory RWA growth without any additional top line growth. This enabled us to announce 2 M&A transactions. This is capital well spent as these transactions are clearly shareholder accretive. Once we fully realize the synergies, these acquisitions will add around EUR 500 million to our operating results. Over the coming years, we do not foresee a need to allocate additional capital for RWA-led growth. In fact, we expect a small decline.

Let me now turn to our capital framework. We raised our capital target to a minimum level of 13.75%, mainly on the back of a higher [ SREP ] requirement related to interest-only mortgages. Relative to our capital stack, our target works out as a buffer of at least 30 to 35 basis points over our regulatory requirements of 11.4% as of January 2026. This buffer also covers our undisclosed Pillar 2 guidance. The regulatory requirements of 11.4% includes the current high Dutch countercyclical buffer of 2%, which is among the highest in Europe. For the years '26, '27 and '28, we intend to distribute up to 100% of our net profit with at least 50% in the form of a cash dividend. In a scenario where our core Tier 1 ratio remains significantly above 13.75%, additional distributions could be considered subject to regulatory approval. There's no change in the timing of our capital assessment. And as stated by Marguerite, this will be at our Q4 results.

Let me give you an overview of our capital dynamics going forward. We are projecting an increase in profitability in combination with lower RWAs. This means we expect very robust net capital generation. Over the next 3 years, this should generate at least EUR 7.5 billion of distributable capital. We are confident that we can distribute most, if not all, of this amount. Of course, any share buyback transaction is subject to regulatory approval. This capital framework underscores our commitment to delivering attractive and sustainable returns to shareholders while maintaining a robust capital position.

To conclude, we have clear 2028 targets. We are aiming for ROE above 12%, a cost/income ratio below 55% and a core Tier 1 ratio of at least 13.75% Income is projected to exceed EUR 10 billion by 2028 and Corporate Bank capital allocation will be lowered to around 50%. We are very confident in our ability to achieve these targets and generate attractive returns to shareholders in each year of our plan. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ferd. That concludes the presentation section of today. We will now move to the Q&A part. Marguerite, Arlene, Choy, Dan, Serena and Carsten will join us on stage. Let me, in the meantime, walk you through the logistics. [Operator Instructions].

So I'm pretty confident that we have all the time to answer your questions. Should that not be the case, please know that the IR team will be available to answer all questions in the coming days. Now let's see who wants to have a question. I see a lot of interest. Good. Let's start on the Johan.

It's Johan Ekblom here from UBS. Maybe to start a bit with thinking about the flexibility in your plan, right? I think as analysts, we tend to be maybe skeptical sometimes on top line growth initiatives, et cetera.

And I think you made the point that you're committed to delivering on these financial targets in various macroeconomic scenarios. So how much flexibility do you think you have around controlling, I guess, in particular, the cost side if revenues are maybe not what you hope for them to be? And then maybe for you, Marguerite, more kind of longer-term thinking. I mean, I think you made the point a couple of times that you are strong on AI, strong on technology, et cetera.

But when we look across Europe, a 55% cost income is certainly not what you'd expect from someone that's an AI leader. How should we think long term? Where do you think a bank with ABN's footprint should be? Or maybe that's for the next business plan, but let us look ahead a bit.

Flexibility. We built a plan, we're confident we can deliver. And as you can see, most of the levers are in our own hands. We focus on cost. We focus on capital steering. We focus on profitable growth. This is about clarity. This is about choices. This is about discipline. So we do not rely on the external environment. If it is benign, all the better, but this is not where the plan comes from. This is self-help. We rely on ourselves. And as Ferdi mentioned, for instance, if the inflation is higher than the 2% we have in our underlying assumptions, we will compensate for that with additional cost savings. So this is something we're very committed to. And I think you got many examples from our colleagues that everything is grounded in strong business cases we have committed to. And we have already started.

If you look at the last quarters, we have already decreased or reduced our workforce by 1,000 year-to-date. So we have already started. Same thing with RWAs. We have already started rightsizing our RWAs by EUR 7 billion since the beginning of the year. So this is all already started. Our cost/income ratio, we have a target on our cost income to go below 55%.

We come to above -- we come from above 60% today. So this is significant. This is a significant improvement. And right now, we are focused on delivering this by 2028. What will it look like in '29 and '30? It will look better but we are not providing targets for this. We're focused on '28. But yes, the outlook for '29 and '30 for ROE, for cost income is even better than that.

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

Giulia Motto from Morgan Stanley. Two questions from me as well. The first one on the EUR 10 billion of RWA reduction in the Corporate Bank. So how quickly are you planning that? Is that something that is already happening and so we can see it perhaps next year? Or is it more back-end loaded?

And is there any revenues that you're losing on the back of this, especially when you talk about selective portfolio decisions? And then the second question is connected because if I put through this minus EUR 10 billion RWAs and all your other assumptions, actually, CBN significantly above 13.75%. So is that the excess that we could assume perhaps goes for further M&A and for your ambition to be a top 5 private bank in Europe?

I will let Dan take your question on the RWAs of -- for the Corporate Bank, but I will answer your question on M&A. We do not have an M&A buffer. As we said right now, we are fully focused on integrating Hull, closing NIBC and making these 2 new opportunities a success for our group. This is our focus right now. So we don't -- do not expect additional M&A right now.

And if we explore an additional M&A opportunity, we have outlined very strict and disciplined criteria. And as we said, among this criteria, making sure that these are accretive opportunities for our shareholders will be a key metric. Dan, on RWAs for the Corporate Bank and impact on our revenues.

Sure. So as I mentioned, we have a clear plan to reduce RWAs in Corporate Bank with EUR 10 billion. This is across in the first place, data quality and data sourcing improvements. client selection framework, so really assessing the profitability of our exposure and exiting low-returning segments. And thirdly, refocusing some of our activities, for example, ABF.

The data quality, data sourcing improvements are rather in the front of our plan. So we have clear visibility, and we've identified the opportunities there. Our client selection framework will follow the maturity schedule of our portfolio. So it's more evenly spread over time up to 2028. And our ABF repositioning and refocusing is fully on track. The execution plan is already delivering the RWA reduction. On your question regarding loss of revenues, we are deploying an active portfolio management. So we are also reallocating capital in an active way from low-returning exposures to profitable revenues. So in short, our RWA reduction is really grounded and tangible, and we have visibility across our plan up to 2028 on every part of our RWA reduction.

Let's go to front.

Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux.

So the first question is on the capital allocation to the commercial bank down to 50%. I was wondering if it's still a big number. I was wondering if there have been debate at the Board level on further reducing that number over time maybe.

Are we going to stop here? Or is that a kind of trajectory towards a lower level? So that's the first question. And number two is on capital generation. What would be the timing of the capital distribution will that be every year distributing the excess capital? Will that be mechanical? Or will you take eventually M&A into account? So I want to know if the timing will be relatively front-loaded or backloaded.

So capital allocation to our Corporate Bank, we're moving from 58% of our RWA to 50% in 2028. That does not include clearing. We are really focusing right now on our 2028 target. So we are not providing guidance or targets beyond. We are focusing on that, and we're focusing on profitable growth for Corporate Bank. Capital generation throughout the plan between '26 and '28.

We are giving a capital generation target across the plan. We are not providing a yearly target. We are committing to delivering and distributing up to 100% of the capital we're generating, but we're not giving a yearly target. We will proceed every Q4 with our annual results to an assessment on our position. And we -- this is the moment where we -- where we will give you the outcome, yes. But we commit to up to 100% throughout the plan.

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

Okay. My first question is regarding -- it's a follow-up on Guilia's question. I also get a higher CET1, if I get your numbers. So it will be good to clarify one of your comments further that you said that if capital ratios remain significantly above 13.75%, you will consider additional remuneration.

I don't know if you can give us some explain what means significantly above. Regarding that question, you mentioned that you are including SME support factor in your numbers. Can you confirm if you are also including FRTB impact that it was positive, the last update I got. And also on the mortgage floor, I think that's not included, right? Following that question, I guess, if we want to get a CET1 closer to this 14%, should we assume, I don't know, I'm going to try a share buyback in the 4Q of at least EUR 400 million.

This is not the time for this question, but let's give that right. And my second question, changing topic is on OpEx, operating expenses. Merit, you just mentioned that you have some levers or some room still if things doesn't go -- don't go as you plan. I don't know if you could give us some more color on the anti-money laundering. There's been a lot of discussion on this one. One of your slides, you mentioned that you plan to reduce by around 35% I don't know if you could give us the standing point today, how much do you spend in AML? How many FTEs? And what could be the ending point of that item?

Okay. First, Ferdi on our CET1. I will let also Henri take your question on anti-money laundering. But I just want first to tell you that there is one thing we don't compromise with is that we are fully committed to doing our job and doing it right, and this is part of our role in society.

So our first priority when it comes to detecting financial crime is doing our job and doing it right. This being said, we also know how we can be more productive, and Henri will get back to that. But Ferdi, on CET1.

Yes. On CET1, Number one, yes, if you look at Q3 pro forma, our core Tier 1 14.8%. You need to take into account for the second half of next year, the impact of our intended acquisition of NRBC of around 70 basis points. So that will bring the overall everything staying equal, core Tier 1 ratio back to 14.1%.

Yes, in our capital framework, if there is over a longer period, a significant gap between our targets and where we end up, we may consider nonordinary distributions. But for the plan we're presenting here today, we do not foresee to apply for a payout above 100%.

Your second question was on the SME support factor. Yes, Marguerite already mentioned at the start as well that we expect the part of the benefits already being realized in the next few quarters. So the total will be around EUR 2 billion to EUR 3 billion. So we expect in the next few quarters, maybe EUR 1 billion or slightly above to capture that benefit already.

FRTB, well, it's clearly discussed amongst many of my colleagues in Europe. There are quite a few banks who are really trying to push for a delay. For us, it's a benefit. You mentioned already the EUR 1 billion, yes, but we expect that this will be realized as of the 1st of January 2027. So in the plan here, there's around EUR 1 billion for the implementation of FRTB. The mortgage floor, as I mentioned, the DNB will review in Q4 next year.

That's the macro prudential 458 rule. If this is not continued, this will be around EUR 5 billion of RWA relief, this is not in our forecast. And then your last one was on Q4 expectations. Yes, that is clearly too early. We are back to the same rhythm we always do. We review our capital position during Q4, and we announced the outcome at our Q4 results in February. But as I said before, we look forward. We take into account the EUR 250 million share buyback already done, and we also take into account the 70 basis point impact of NIBC.

Hnri, on AML?

Yes, sure. So I've mentioned that we will reduce the FTEs of the contact center and operations and AML together with some 35%. At the end of Q3 2025, we had 4,600 FTEs in total for the and we expect to bring that down quite substantially. We are for both already in the process of doing that. So in the contact center on the back of reduced call volume in operations also because we have a lot of streamlined things. And the more we digitalize, the more we become straight through and the more we have a lot of efficiency.

On the AML part, I think there's a couple of things that I mentioned and some of them are quite impactful. So offshoring is one of them. We have already started offshoring. We already have quite a few people in India. But there's actually a big moment coming up in mid-2027 when there's new regulation. So the new regulation allows us to offshore more than we are allowed under Dutch regulation today. So we are preparing to benefit from that at that moment. So that's where you will see FTEs in the Netherlands decrease, but we will move many of them to India.

And also, we see the effects of Gen AI. So actually, it's really, really nice to see what happened last week. So we implemented a new system for our analysts, which -- with which they can summarize more easily, but also already, for instance, write the reports that they have to send to the financial crime unit in the Netherlands. And what is so interesting about the whole Gen AI development that the team came with the plan end of July.

They started building in September, and we now have it live with 30 analysts on technology that didn't even exist 18 months ago. So we see a lot of benefits from Gen AI in the coming time. And also, we see that we are further and further on our route to complete compliance with the rules and regulation, which also means that we have less work there.

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

Firstly, I'm sadly old enough to have seen a few plans from ABN AMRO expecting to take cost back to where it started. So what I'd be interested is really getting a sense of what substantively is new and going to make the difference here in terms of why we should give you credibility on this.

In fairness, I can see a much higher tempo, much more granular plan. I hear you on accountability, and it feels like an external perspective has helped here. I'd just like really your view from the coal face given the history. And then secondly, the enterprise and entrepreneur kind of concept isn't entirely new. I think I've seen a few iterations of it. In fairness, it's somewhere I would have thought you should have a right to compete.

It's never quite sparked. So I'd like to know again, what's different going to make that work this time. And obviously, it's one of those things that kind of crosses business lines. So I wouldn't mind understanding how you're aligning people on that.

Why are we credible? Because we've already started because everything we've put on the table is documented. There is the business case behind each of the initiatives we've put on the table. We've given you a lot of details. These are all plans that we are committed to. We've worked on this as a team. There was no external consultant to do it. We did it ourselves, and this is a plan that primarily rely on levers in our control.

And I think this is the most important part. I will ask Toy, if that's okay, to develop on the E&E and you see she's already very close to Dan, so he can tell you all about dual relationship with our clients.

Yes. On the E&E service model, as we mentioned in our plans, we have a track record in servicing our wealth family-owned business clients. And what we have done actually in the recent years is implemented and rolled out the E&E proposition in all the countries. So in France, we already had a strong footprint in E&E, and we also rolled it out in Germany and in Belgium.

And in the Netherlands, we further strengthened our collaboration with the Corporate Bank. So we've been very much working on to making sure we have the right infrastructure in place in order to be able to serve those dual clients even better than we do today. And as we both mentioned in our plans, we are further accelerating on that in increasing the collaboration, but also very much looking into the products, which we can offer towards our clients, giving our clients specifically in these family-owned businesses that carpet treatment so that they see us as one bank and not as 2 separate banks servicing them. Dan?

Just to build on what Toy was saying. First of all, we have a distinctive proposition when it comes to Wealth Management and corporate banking across our key markets. There are 3 distinctive ways in the future that we will drive this. One, we have clearly now set a target to increase the number of dual client relationships. Two, our client selection framework that I mentioned about is also very much assessing the contribution to this target and to profitability, to real profitability, not only from a balance sheet perspective, but also from a fee-enhancing perspective.

And thirdly, we will allocate resources here. So we are reallocating capital from lower returning segments, for example, ABF International that Marguerite mentioned, to this accretive portfolio where we believe we can drive profitable growth.

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

Tarik El Mejjad from Bank of America.

Congratulations for this plan, definitely very decisive. I was also one of the old guys at the IPO next door in the room next door, smooth, I would say.

So no, I mean, more so 2 questions from my side, please. First, on the corporate bank repositioning. I mean, in the mix shift, you clearly go to a more specialized lending, less general lending. And don't you think there is a risk that you become a bit too targeted or too subscale in some of the businesses because maybe you tell us, I guess, you will be focused on more in specific industries.

And so you see a risk of that. And your 11% ROE target, I guess this is unfinished job, and there will be next plan where you take it to a higher level because that's still dilutive to the group ambitions. And last one for you then on the SRTs. How comfortable you are to to actually be active on that product on this optimization, there is a wind of kind of questioning about SRT and how much it contributes to the capital stack, especially if you're distributing 100% payout that could play. And very -- I mean, just to transfer to my questions on NII. So on a positive spin, I think your NII might be a bit cautious. If you can highlight a bit the assumptions, especially on the asset margin compression to understand the reason for that. And you have 5% plus deposit growth. Surely, your hedge portfolio will be expanding. If you can give us some indication on [indiscernible]

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

Yes. So first of all, we have a clear tangible plan that is focused on profitability and disciplined capital allocation. We are indeed reallocating capital from general lending to specialized finance markets clearing and dual clients where we believe we can drive profitable growth. We have leading market position. I see plenty of opportunities to grow profitably in our key markets in Northwest Europe and pan-European with the transitions we mentioned.

So I believe we have the scale, and we also have the product expertise, for example, in project finance, evidenced by our leading positions in digital and energy, advisory capabilities. So I truly believe that while we are shifting the portfolio for profitability, we will stay aligned with our risk appetite, and we are also creating a focused scale in our key markets. So I'm confident in that. And I'm also confident that while we are managing the capital consumption of Corporate Bank, we are doing that in a very tight manner by improving our profitability to 11% ROE, as Marguerite mentioned. On the SRT question?

Yes. On the SRT question, I would like to start by mentioning clearly that we have a well-balanced active portfolio management strategy. And SRTs are not the only instrument at our disposal. We are focusing on partnerships, portfolio transactions, and we have done a thorough assessment of our portfolio of the potential for SRTs in our portfolios. We will only deploy SRTs if there is a clear economic rationale and if that helps us actually to fuel profitable growth and achieve our strategic objectives. So we will have a very tight discipline in deploying active portfolio management for pursuing profitable growth.

NII, are you...

NII, favorite topic. Yes, I think with what we are disclosing today, I think 3 takeaways. Number one, if you compare '26 to '25, you see roughly on commercial NII, an increase of EUR 200 million. Take into account in this EUR 200 million is a delta of roughly EUR 70 million for full year inclusion of Hua AlfaZalampa. If you then go to '28, the EUR 7.2 billion, that's a bridge of EUR 1 billion versus 2025. Also included in there is then the EUR 300 million related to the acquisition of NIBC.

Overall, we expect, if you look at asset margin mentioned earlier, specifically, we see this in the mortgage markets. which is clearly a very important driver where 60% of our balance sheet sits. Number one is the introduction of the adjustments if the LTVs goes down and then the risk premium will go down. That's number one on the back book. Number two is also the discount, for example, on mortgage label A and B in terms of sustainability.

Number three, what you're also seeing there is a decrease in portfolio of interest-only mortgages. So all these elements and if you combine that with the front book of the state guaranteed mortgages increasing at lower margins, but good ROE over the whole forecasted period, you will see a very slight decline in overall asset margins. So what is the biggest driver over time is clearly the liability side of the balance sheet. we've been very explicit. What is most rate sensitive is your current accounts at roughly 25%. So currently around EUR 55 billion. That will clearly increase if you look at the underlying assumptions of deposit growth. And secondly, it is the equity duration.

If you look at the equity duration, I think our forecast indeed, as you say, is prudent. We take into account here that only the rate sensitivity is on the current accounts. And if you look at all deposits where we do pay interest on, the margins will stay relatively stable. So it is forecasted as an allocation out based on the 3-year swap curve and on the back of that, the trajectory is calculated. But you could say under all these assumptions we're providing here today, you can have a qualification that it might be prudent as we stand here today.

Can you hand it to your neighbor, Namita?

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

We have on our FTE trajectory, we provide a lot of information on how we're going to do that and at which pace. So we are confident that our natural attrition will help us make this happen. We are also able to accompany redundancies. This is why we have made sure we renewed by anticipation a social plan that covers the coming 3 years up to 2029 so that we can be there also at the sizes of colleagues that will be made redundant and we can provide financial support, and we can also provide advice and be at their side to find other opportunities outside the bank.

So we have in terms of HR all the tools at our disposal to make sure that in a very orderly manner, every time there is a reorganization in the bank, and this has already started. You have a fair number of RFAs going on right now in the bank. Every time we do that, we have the full HR tools at our disposal to do that. At the same time, we also make sure we always have the right skills and we upgrade our skills. So every time we feel that for better serving our clients or because we need tech capacities.

And this is a plan Carsten, we made with Carsten just to make sure that we would integrate more of these tech capacities and talents in the bank because they are extremely necessary. We make the right choice for the bank because this is -- we think long term. So we rightsize our cost base, but this is about rightsizing right. not doing stupid things, having a short-term view.

So this is very important for us. When it comes to Anna, I don't know if -- we don't provide -- we said Anna was handling 140,000 client conversation per month, and we are very proud of this achievement. But we don't provide FTE reductions on the back of that. But I don't know if you want to give Carsten a bit more color on ANA because we're very proud of ANA.

Yes, not only Anna, I think...

We're getting to the full family.

Speaking about AI, I think it has become clear that we are fully embracing AI, and we have left the experimentation phase big time. So we have more than 25 use cases in production that actually provide value as we speak. And we have not only Chatbot ANA, but if you're talking about efficiency alongside that stream, so to say, we have also reduced our call volume by 15%. And I think this is a result of multiple measures, not only our Chatbot ANA, but we are also helping, for instance, our agents actually with auto summarization functionalities to be able to take up to 25% more calls.

So this is coming from actually 2 ends. And if you actually would like to sort this out, we didn't even do that ourselves, just the effect of one use case, so to say. But what we have done is we have actually embedded our AI use cases and our projections going forward into our financial plan. that is conservative and fully grounded. Like what Ann just said, in 18 months ago, this technology didn't even exist. We haven't taken any fantasy into account of future technologies popping up. We know what we would like to deliver, and that's what we have embedded in our financial plan.

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

Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs. So two questions. Maybe just first a follow-up. How should we think about the ROI of those 25 in production use cases on AI? Maybe if not in absolute terms, just how that ROI would compare to alternative uses to the M&A you've already done or to potential shareholder distribution?

And then second, on Slide 65, there's the other bucket of EUR 200 million of cost increase. Is there something specific in there? Or should we think of that as headroom to absorb another 1 percentage point or so of inflation?

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

So we do not really disclose the full ROI of AI cases in particular for every use case. But what I can say in general is that the beauty of the AI cases is that you normally have actually very small teams who can implement AI use cases that have a big lever and a big impact. So when you look at AI use cases in our experience with the more than 25 use cases we have actually brought to production, this has a very nice return on invest and also a quite short amortization period.

And what I cannot confirm is what you probably read sometimes from Gartner and other consulting companies and analysts is they are sometimes saying that you have probably 80% of these use cases not bringing any value. We actually start right early with failing fast, and we don't even let them in the further phases of our pipeline. So our 25-plus use cases all bring value, but we don't disclose the particular ROA figure.

Okay. So EUR 200 million.

Look at me, yes, but what can I say, Craig, the only thing I can say, I think AI is an enabler for many of our efficiency initiatives. You've seen that. We forecast a EUR 300 million absolute cost reduction, and we have a restructuring provision of EUR 400 million against it.

So in terms of return on investments, about where would we deploy, I think with an enabler of AI, this is by far the best options to compared to all the other ones.

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

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

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

Fully circular.

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

Our former new.

Exactly. Just to clarify.

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

Delphine Lee from JPMorgan. So just 2 on my side. The first one is just a follow-up on NII and [indiscernible] question, if that's okay. I'm just wondering because if you look at sort of the bridge between 2026 of EUR 6.4 billion to EUR 7.2 billion in '28, and that includes the EUR 300 million of NIBC. That EUR 500 million just doesn't seem quite a lot considering you have deposit growth, replicating income. You only mentioned the current accounts of EUR 55 billion instead of your overall replicating portfolio.

So anything else we're missing or deposit costs or liability margin just seems like it's not recovering that much from 120% or 120 basis points-ish. So if you could just elaborate a little bit on that, that would be great. My second question is on distribution. Just wanted to understand a little bit sort of your thought process around your up to 100%, which potentially could also be above that, considering you have excess capital, you run already comfortably above 14%. So is that dependent on M&A transactions? And just wondering why wouldn't just say 100% given the room you have? And is that a function of how much sort of buffer you want to keep above that 13.75% CET1 ratio?

So Ferdi will answer a question on NII, but I will take the one on distribution. Our commitment is up to 100% over the course of the plan. You're right. We have a very strong capital position. So we're very comfortable with this commitment. I think also Ferdi said that if we were to be in the long run, significantly above our 13.75% CET1 target, we could consider additional distributions.

But these distributions that come beyond the profit we generate are subject to regulatory approvals, and they are not part of our plan for the moment. So our commitment is up to 100% distribution of the capital we generate over the course of the plan. And yes, we have a strong capital position. This is one of the strength of the bank. I agree with you. NII...

Yes. Coming back to NII. I said before about the other commercial NII, which is clearing and interest-related fees, we forecast that to remain relatively stable. So that is the EUR 350 million to EUR 400 million. So that's basically flat. If you look at other elements of the around EUR 500 million, we are providing the sensitivity slide of replicating income.

There you do see that we've seen the inflection point where from a headwind, it starts to become a small tailwind in the first half of 2026 and then starts increasing afterwards. In our forecast, we assume that margins stay at the same level. So we don't provide any indication what we expect to happen with potential pricing. So the assumption on this, that pricing, that margin on this part stays the same. So if you look at overall deposit margins, we expect that for 2026 over a whole year still be slightly lower than 2025. then it will recover further in 2027.

And I would say, if you look towards 2028 at liability margin overall, it will be around 5 basis points higher versus where we are today. So the biggest part clearly is from the replicating portfolio, which is currently around EUR 165 billion, of which 1/3 is in current accounts. And there, you really see the benefit of improving forward rates.

Okay. First to Anke. Third row.

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

Execution risk, and this is a broader question, not only you mentioned capital, you mentioned costs. We have grounded every assumption, whether it is about RWA reduction or how we are going to reach our cost targets. Everything is grounded in our plan. Everything has been challenged. I shouldn't even say that, but I even ask internal audits to check each of these business cases to provide.

So I mean, I can tell you this is solid. So there is always an execution risk. that we have a conservative risk appetite. So we minimize risk of execution. So this is what we are committed to. On the payout question, I mean, our commitment is that we are -- every year, we -- our payout policy is 50% in dividend. And I think we've also been clear that over the course of the plan, up to 100% of the additional capital we're generating will be -- can be distributed. So this is, I don't know if you want to add anything.

No, the only thing, what do you accrue for in principle, we accrue for dividends. That is 50%. So that will be accrued over the full year, and we always intend to pay out 40% interim dividend at half year. We always do the assessment in Q4 for additional distributions. We keep the option open between share buyback and cash dividend from a tax perspective.

And so we don't accrue for that and what we normally do. When we announce at Q4 the outcome of this assessment, we immediately subtracted from our core Tier 1 capital. So we only accrue for 50% of dividend for the year.

I think Jason and Alberto first, Jason?

Jason Kalamboussis from ING. The first question, if I may, for Marguerite. You said become a top 5 European private bank. How do you measure this? What positions are you currently on that basis? How do you get to the top 5 in wealth? And what is the time frame? And the second question for Troy. Looking at the fees growth that you showed on the slide is 2%. I mean, maybe I'm looking at it, it's 1.6%, I think. So I mean, this has been relatively weak over the last 4 years. Could we have more disclosure so that we are better able to assess the chances of having that superior fee growth? Because when we look, you present the client assets, that includes cash and custody, which your peers are not doing.

And also when you have a EUR 335 billion, of course, with cash and custody would never -- a lot of things can be possible, whereas it would be nice for us to have this. And when I look also at the inflows, looking backwards, I think it's possible to calculate and I could be wrong, but it looks like most of the inflows have been again, from the custody, which is not where the better profitability is. So again, if you could comment on that and elaborate. And again, it would be great if we can have a split of inflows between custody and what I would call proper net inflows and then also by country, like again, a couple of peers are doing now.

On our ambition to be a top 5 European player when it comes to wealth. Right now, we're in the top 10, closer to the top 5 and to #10 position. So we are confident that based on the full integration of HAL that will kick in full year, we only have half a year in 2025, plus organic growth fully fueled. We have all the engines turned down, so fully fueled also by the synergies we were mentioning between our corporate bank.

We are confident that we are on the right trajectory for that. Top 5 European players, this is a long-term ambition. So can we achieve it in 2028 or later? We'll see. But the trajectory is there. And in the meantime, we are committed to growing our client assets up to EUR 335 billion by 2028. This is a CAGR of 8% to 10% for wealth business in the coming years. [indiscernible], more color on the additional question.

Yes. On your questions around fee and the growth we are projecting for the coming years.

What we have seen is that in the recent years, we have benefited from the NII tailwind because of that, we saw increased volumes in savings and deposits. But now we expect fee to further grow because we have shown that we are able to migrate savings and deposits more or less average between -- in 6 months' time towards valuable assets, so into investments. You also see this in our ability now with our NNA boost campaign to add and to attract more core NNA towards the bank. And next to that, HAL is also contributing. So HA gives an overall growth that helps us to reach the 8% to 10% assets.

If you look at the NNA growth, it's focused on core NNA, so excluding custody. And the 8% to 10%, if we take -- if we exclude Hull, we have a growth of 5% to 7%. So including HA, we will reach this ambition level. And custody has always been part of our business. So if it comes by, we will take the opportunity, but it's more volatile and it has low margins. So that's how we look into this business. We're very much focused on the core NNA growth.

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

Alberto Artoni from Intesa Sanpaolo. So I have 2. The first on capital, why did you set your target at 13.75%. Optically, it looks a bit higher compared to peers. It's just because you want to be very well capitalized? Or do you expect regulatory requirement to change over the years?

And secondly, on cost, could you provide a little bit more color on how the journey will look like in terms of what -- in '26, '27, what things are going to look like, both in terms of cost saves and restructuring charges?

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

Yes. I think if you look at the trajectory, we're quite explicit. We're basically providing you with the cost/income target, but also with the cost/income target, and we intend to do that on a rolling 12-month basis. So now we have provided a cost target for 2026. So expecting 2026, we're going to provide an absolute cost target for 2027. Of course, if you look at the plans and the restructuring, the restructuring is more spread over time of the mentioned in total up to EUR 400 million.

So you will see some more restructuring in the earlier years and then the charges will start to come down in the later years. So yes, also because the specific underlying restructurings will take time to be implemented. There will always be a tilt of the cost trajectory towards the second part of our financial plan as we presented today.

Okay. Then I see first, Matthew.

Matt Clark, Mediobanca here. Firstly, coming back to the payout ratio and your guidance of at least 50% and up to 100% payout. Am I right to be thinking that this is the plan from the 1st of January 2026 and in terms of assessing a potential payout at the fourth quarter, we should kind of disregard that future looking up to 100% steer. So that's the first question. Second question is on the EUR 400 million restructuring charges you just mentioned.

I mean, any more color in terms of the distribution of that across the years ahead? I know you said it was front-loaded would be helpful. But also, can you just confirm that those restructuring charges include the integration costs for HAL and NIBC as well? Or should we add those on top? Because I think you've made a distinction between integration and restructuring charges in the past.

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

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

Meant acquisition of NIBC that amounts for...

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

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

Then we're moving to our last question.

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

So you had indeed a cost/income ratio for each of our divisions, but we are a bank that also has central functions. So all -- we manage our cost base on a group-wide approach. So the way we steer is that we are putting more efforts on central functions. It's true. We are putting more effort on that in order to redeploy resources, budget, IT resources, capital and so on to the businesses. So this is -- we have a group-wide effort on our cost base, EUR 900 million over the course of the plan, everything grounded in a business case, but more effort. Henri gave some highlights on what it meant for operations and DFC, for instance.

So more effort on central and supporting functions. Since this is our last question, let me First, thank you very much for your attention this afternoon, for your questions, for the interest you take in ABN AMRO. As you've understood, this is a plan that's grounded in 3 short-term priorities: profitable growth, rightsizing our cost base and steering on capital. We have built this plan relying on our own strengths, on our own resources to grow our bank and build our own future. Thank you very much again for your attention, and we wish you a very good afternoon.

Welcome to ABN AMRO's Q3 2025 Analyst and Investor Call. Please note, this call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions].

I will now hand the call over to speakers. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to ABN AMRO's Q3 results presentation. I'm joined today by our CFO, Ferdinand Vaandrager; and our CRO, Serena Fioravanti. After our presentation, we will hold a Q&A session to address all your questions.

Let me begin with the highlights of the third quarter on Slide 2 before moving to the announcement of our intention to acquire NIBC.

The third quarter was another solid quarter for ABN AMRO. Net profit reached EUR 617 million with a return on equity of 9.5%. The inclusion of HAL contributed EUR 26 million to our results across all products we managed to grow this quarter. Our mortgage portfolio increased by EUR 2.1 billion and corporate loans grew by the same amount. Net new assets increased by EUR 4.3 billion. Cost discipline remains a priority with FTEs declining by 700 in Q3 and by almost 1,000 year-to-date, excluding HAL.

Credit quality remained strong with EUR 49 million in net impairment releases reflecting recoveries and improved macroeconomic variables. Our CET1 ratio stands at 14.8%, and we finalized the EUR 250 million share buyback in September. We will review our capital position in Q4 to assess the potential for further capital returns.

Now turning to our other announcement of the day. I'm very pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement to acquire NIBC. This acquisition is fully aligned with our strategy and presents a unique opportunity to reinforce our leading position in the Dutch retail market, and accelerate our personal and business banking strategy. NIBC is a well-run, primarily Dutch-focused entrepreneurial bank with a strong specialization in mortgage lending and savings products. It serves around 500,000 retail clients and around 175 corporate clients with a high-quality portfolio mortgage and very low arrears. NIBC will add around EUR 28 billion of mortgages, significantly increasing our scale in these markets, further cementing our leading position in the Dutch mortgage market.

Around half of the mortgage portfolio will be off balance as NIBC has an attractive originate-to-manage franchise with long-dated mortgages.

The acquisition also brings an attractive savings platform, serving 300,000 clients across the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. The savings offer an interesting cross-sell opportunity with our investment platform, BUX. Given NIBC's domestic focus and the overlap of service providers, there is substantial potential for cost synergies with limited execution risk. This transaction is expected to deliver return on invested capital of around 18%, 1-8, and will improve our group's financial profile.

The capital impact of approximately 70 basis points is anticipated at closing. The acquisition is, of course, subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to be completed during the second half of 2026. We look forward to welcoming NIBC's clients and colleagues and to the opportunities this acquisition will bring to us all.

Now turning to our third quarter results. I will start with the Dutch economy. While the Dutch economy continues to perform well, supported by a strong fiscal position and low unemployment, the housing market remains robust, with pricing still rising, though at a lower pace than in the first half of the year. Employment continued to rise and is at a record high. The debt-to-GDP ratio of the Netherlands remains very healthy -- and that's a French person telling you that, it is significantly lower than other European countries.

The Dutch elections results have been announced and coalition talks have begun. Ideally, the quick and stable formation process will allow the new government to start addressing important national issues, for example, the housing shortage or the nitrogen issue.

Given this economic context on the next slide, I will discuss our results. We again showed a quarter with strong mortgage production growth, thanks to a robust housing market. Our mortgage portfolio grew by EUR 2.1 billion in Q3 with our market share in new production rising to 19%. We made some important amendments to our mortgage terms. We now automatically adjust risk premium after repayments, reviewing it monthly instead of only at the end of the fixed rate period. This led our mortgage products obtaining the top rating in the intermediary market, which accounts for nearly 75% of new volume. We observed an immediate increase in new volumes following this.

Today, we also announced the rationalization of our mortgage brand line-up. Going forward, we will focus on our core labels, namely ABN AMRO and Florius and we will discontinue the Moneyou brand. This allows us to focus investments in our core labels, in technology and innovation to further improve our services.

Moving to corporate loans, further organic growth and the inclusion of HAL resulted in EUR 2.1 billion loan growth this quarter. Loan growth was partially offset by the wind-down of asset-based finance. This quarter, we sold our U.K. lease portfolio.

Moving to deposits. HAL added close to EUR 11 billion of client deposits. Within Wealth Management, we also have provided targeted offerings starting in Q2, which have resulted in net new assets of over EUR 4 billion this quarter.

Given this positive developments in our lending and deposit franchises, let's now look more closely how these have supported our net interest income.

Our net interest income increased to EUR 1.5 billion. HAL's inclusion contributed positively to NII by around EUR 34 million. The inflow of NHG mortgages and the adjustments we made in the mortgage terms I just mentioned before, led to slightly lower margins. However, the strong growth in our mortgage book offset this. Deposit margins declined partly related to targeted offerings within Wealth Management at reduced margins. Treasury results increased during Q3. However, the increase was a bit lower than initially expected.

Based on last quarter's forward rates, the inflection point of replicating portfolio yield was expected at the beginning of next year. However, current interest rates have brought this timing forward this quarter, bringing the decline in the replicating yield to a standstill. In the coming quarters, we expect the deposit margins will start to become a tailwind.

Looking ahead to next quarter and assuming a modest increase in treasury NII and stable deposit margins, we expect full year NII of at least EUR 6.3 billion, including HAL.

Now turning to fees. Looking at our third quarter fee income, the fee contribution from HAL becomes evident, increasing overall fee income by around 10%. These excluding HAL, continued to increase, with fee income for the third quarter, reaching its highest level in the past 2 years. Personal and Business Banking fees increased mainly from higher seasonal payment transactions. Wealth Management fees was primarily thanks to higher advisory and mandated business volumes.

Other income is volatile by nature and ended at EUR 28 million for Q3. The decline was caused by a number of factors, all having a negative impact on other income this quarter. Specifically, we booked lower equity participation results, lower other income within treasury and a negative fair value correction of past bookings related to some mortgages.

Now moving to our operating expenses. We have further reduced expenses as we worked on rightsizing our cost base. This quarter, FTE showed a significant reduction of 700, half of which related to contractors in Group Functions. Since the beginning of the year, the number of contractors have declined by 1,100. To a limited extent, we onboarded external for their skills, which explains the small increase in internal FTEs over the same period.

The Dutch Collective Labor Agreement increased wages by 3.75% on the 1st of July, leading to an increase this quarter in personnel expenses. Thanks to our ongoing cost discipline, our underlying cost base declined this quarter. At the beginning of the year, we projected our underlying costs excluding HAL to be between EUR 5.3 billion and EUR 5.4 billion, and we are confident now of ending at the lower end of this guidance. Including HAL, this now translates to a full year cost guidance between EUR 5.4 billion to EUR 5.5 billion.

Now turning to our credit quality, which again remained very solid. Prudent risk management supports our strong financial results. We recorded impairment releases of EUR 49 million this quarter, mainly related to recoveries in corporate loans and improved macroeconomic variables. We saw some inflow into stage 3 for specific individual files, although, this was lower compared to the last few quarters and fully offset by releases. The total Stage 3 ratio decreased slightly to 2% and our coverage ratio was broadly stable for each of our lending projects. Given the impairments year-to-date, the cost of risk for 2025 will likely end around 0 for the full year.

Now moving on to our capital position on the next slide. Our CET1 ratio remains stable at 14.8%, well above the regulatory requirements of 11.2%. The impact of the consolidation of HAL was offset by the quarterly contribution of our net profit. The total impact of HAL on our CET1 ratio as of Q3 is 40 basis points, 7 basis points of impact were already taken in Q2. The formal move of certain loan portfolios to the standardized approach had no impact on our capital ratio, while RWAs increased by EUR 1.6 billion. This was offset by lower capital deductions in our CET1 capital.

During Q3, data quality improvements were realized around EUR 1 billion of RWA reductions, mainly from data improvements on real estate collateral. Further progress on data remediation is anticipated, for example, related to the SME support factor, which may result in further reductions in Q4.

Looking ahead, as I mentioned, NIBC will impact our capital ratio by around 70 basis points at closing, expected in the course of next year. Our capital position remains robust, and our capital generation is strong. In Q4, we will review our capital outlook and incorporate all the relevant capital and RWA developments.

Now to summarize our third quarter results. For 2025, we expect net interest income of at least EUR 6.3 billion and costs between EUR 5.4 billion and EUR 5.5 billion, both including HAL. We are delivering on our cost discipline, improving our data quality and sourcing and are delivering profitable growth in mortgages and deposits. The seamless integration of HAL and closing the acquisition of NIBC are important strategic milestones as we build scale in our core markets.

Looking ahead, we are excited to invite you to our Capital Markets Day in just 2 weeks' time. There we will present our updated strategy and financial targets with a sharp focus on rightsizing our cost base, optimizing our capital allocation and unlocking profitable growth opportunities. We look forward to sharing our vision for the future and the next chapter in our journey with you.

With that, I would like to ask the operator to open the call for Q&A. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Giulia Miotto from Morgan Stanley.

I'll start with a question on NIBC. Why do you think that the execution risk here is low? Like, can you give us any, I don't know, qualitative comment on, for example, do you have the same systems or -- anything that can give us confidence on essentially achieving this quite significant synergies? That would be my first comment.

And then secondly, I wanted to ask on the costs. The quarter was very good. Was a beat versus consensus expectations, excluding the one-off, the EUR 55 million. However, the exit rate is actually quite high. If I take the mid-range, if I take basically EUR 5.450 billion and then I remove the EUR 3.9 billion that you've done so far, underlying would be EUR 1.55 billion for Q4, which is more than what I would expect. And then it's quite a high run rate for '26. So how should we think about the exit rate and yes, on the cost side?

Thank you very much for your questions. I will start with your first question on NIBC, and Ferdi will take your question on costs.

So on NIBC, bear in mind that this is an asset we know very well. We operate in the same market, in the same businesses, mortgages, savings. So this is an asset we know very well indeed. And you're right, we have evident synergies. I'm going to give you just one. We use, for instance, for mortgages, the same service provider Stater. So this is an evident synergy just to flag this one.

It is too early to share all the details, of course, of the target operating model. Bear in mind that the transaction will be only closed in the second half of 2026. But we are indeed confident that this is below execution risk transaction for us. Now Ferdi to the cost this quarter and looking forward?

Yes, Giulia, I think the most important message on cost is that underlying our costs are going down, evidenced by the FTE reductions year-to-date. And this offsets the more than offset the CLA increase. As Marguerite said already earlier, we will end at the low end of the guidance range, excluding Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe, but if you add the cost of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe, we will add in the range of EUR 5.3 billion EUR 5.4 billion. If you look at the exit rate in Q4, we always have some prudency in our guidance, specifically for Q4 because, as usual, you can always expect some seasonal cost increases. Last year, that was around 4%. So that's what you need to take into account if you look at the exit rate in the guidance.

Okay. But so just to clarify on the Q4 costs. So it will probably be higher than an exit rate for '26. It sounds like because there is some in Q4...

There can always be, Giulia, that is the question underlying, we expect the cost trend to continue as we've seen in the previous quarters. But normally, there is some prudency of the seasonal cost increase you can see in Q4.

Understood.

The guidance is fairly clear between the EUR 5.4 billion and EUR 5.5 billion, including the cost of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe.

The next question comes from the Namita Samtani from Barclays.

The first one on the NIBC deal, thanks to the EUR 100 million of first run rate cost synergies in 2029. But when you speak about further upside from revenue synergies what are you referring to? Are these funding synergies? And do you have a sense of quantum? And also the legal merger of ABN AMRO Hypotheken Groep into ABN AMRO. Is that included in the deal maths that you've given today?

And my second question, on the replicating portfolio, is it still EUR 165 billion in size? And how should we think about the long end part of the replicating portfolio? Is it more mechanical, for example, just a very simple 5-year swap rolling mathematically or in fairly even tranches? It's just that replicating portfolio slide on Page 16, it confuses me a bit. And I can't understand when year-on-year, I'm going to see a benefit from the hedge. Is it in 2027? So any color there helpful.

Thank you very much. I will take your question on NIBC, and Ferdi will take your question on the replicating portfolio. So yes, we see this transaction on NIBC as very accretive indeed because there are synergies in costs as well as in revenues. Just to give you a few highlights, we are adding 500,000 new retail clients to the ABN AMRO Group. These are clients that have -- that are mass affluent clients. So they fit very well our group. We think that we can bring more products and services to these clients. We also see, as I briefly mentioned an opportunity in using BUX to serve these clients. Bear in mind that NIBC have clients, of course, primarily in the Netherlands, but also in Belgium and Germany. So BUX can really help with that.

And yes, in terms of synergies, there are also funding synergies, both on the revenue side as well, I would say, on the cost side, just to hint at a few of the positives we see in the transactions.

Yes, maybe come back and to add to that Marguerite. Indeed, we're prudent in our assessment. So the EUR 100 million is the post tax cost synergies. Of course, there can be some funding synergies. For example, we can over time, refinance the debt securities at the lower rates and also potential reduced LCR targets. But also on the other hand, you might also see some dis-synergies from deposit churn.

So overall, if you look at the synergies, it's negligible in our assumption on the revenue and the funding synergy side. If your question on the replicating portfolio, yes, I can confirm the size is still around EUR 165 billion. As you have seen some terming in, that means that it has increased somewhat over the past 2 quarters, and it's also still there around 40% to 45% of the replicating portfolio reprices within 1 year, and the overall duration is around 3 years.

If you look at the sensitivity slide in the presentation. It's now an update on a quarterly basis. So the starting point is slightly different from the previous quarters. And there, you can see that we have seen the inflection point already on the income side. But if you purely look at the sensitivity, it does not take into account any changes in volume, and it does not take into account any cost changes, i.e., changes in deposit pricing.

So you should just look at as a sensitivity on the replicating income as an 'as is' situation.

And forgive me because I realized I forgot to answer your question on the legal merger and of course, yes the transaction with NIBC is subject to all regulatory approvals. And that, of course, includes the legal merger. Let's say, we do not anticipate difficulties on that front.

The next question comes from Tarik El Mejjad from BofA.

Just another question on NIBC and one on cost base. I mean I guess you share with us more detailed math on the deal with the synergy expected with some time frame because, I mean, clearly, usually, at least on my M&A model, I mean revenue synergies is not something I would push too much. And on the cost sounds quite punchy here, but I mean, Marguerite, you gave some indications of what kind of synergies. But yes, if you can share with us would be helpful. I mean this is very important for your capital allocation, I guess.

And my question is what's next? Because I was more expecting a deal on the Wealth Management to be honest. And in Bloomberg, you mentioned that this is it in terms of deals to be announced. So is this now back to focus on restructuring the bank and costs? Or should we expect more potentially destructive deals to come? So that's number one.

And number two, on just maybe a question for Ferdinand. On the cost guidance, EUR 5.4 billion, EUR 5.5 billion, is that excluding incidentals or it's all-in reported guidance?

Thank you. Thank you very much for your questions. A couple of things. Yes, this deal is highly accretive. The 18% return on invested capital, we are very confident is achievable. And indeed, what we primarily factored, I mean why we factored in this model was primarily cost synergies. So if there are revenue synergies on top of it, it is an upside. But I agree with you, this is not a primary thing that we looked at in this deal. And looking forward, we will be sharing yes, more details on the target operating model, but that will come in due course.

Just to clarify the answer I gave to Bloomberg. This was more an answer on saying, well, we're not going to call every morning to announce to announce a new M&A deal. So it's just that -- I think the question I got from Sarah there was like, is there something else coming out at the CMD? So no, in the next 2 weeks, don't expect any other announcement from us.

And as far as our strategy is concerned, organic and inorganic, we will share everything in 2 weeks when you come to our Capital Markets Day.

Yes. Tarik, to come back to your question on the guidance. Initially, the guidance was equal to last year. We expect to end up at the lower end of that range. Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe adds between the EUR 130 million and EUR 140 million. So this translates in the updated guidance. And clearly, the updated guidance is excluding the incidentals as announced today.

The next question comes from Benoit Petrarque from Kepler Cheuvreux.

So just to come back on NIBC, sorry for that. Just again, the strategic rationale. Because it sounds like a very financially attractive deal and it seems that from a strategic point of view, that was the main reason behind this deal. I was also a bit expecting a bit more other type of deals, let's say. And maybe I missed it, but do you see kind of any franchise value in NIBC or you see just purely 100% as a financial attractive deal with 10% accretion by '29. Just wanted to clarify that because I also see a very low fee base at NIBC. And I was also expecting a bit more fee business as target.

And I was also wondering if you could provide some timing on the EUR 140 million pretax synergies, whether we'll start to see some positive effect from that in '27 or that will be more back-end loaded?

And just second question on NII. So your guidance of more than EUR 6.3 billion implies roughly EUR 50 million quarter-on-quarter on NII in Q4. And I was just wondering if you could provide the moving parts, deposit margin, lending margin, treasury income. What will drive this improvement in the fourth quarter?

Thank you very much for your questions. So on NIBC, it is indeed both, a financially sound deal, an accretive deal and also a strategic deal. I think it's a good -- it's a good way of proving how we look at M&A. M&A strategy will always be disciplined and we will only pursue it if we find it shareholder accretive. It will be -- this is one of our criterion.

You see it with this deal and the 18% of return on invested capital that it brings to the bank. This being said, we see a natural strategic fit with NIBC. It brings us scale in our domestic market in mortgages and in savings. The NIBC brand is a very good brand in the Netherlands. This is a brand that has been existing for 80 years. It has an entrepreneurial flavor. It appeals to the client base that's also slightly different from the clients we already have at ABN AMRO. So it is a great way for us to keep growing and strengthen our position in our domestic market.

To your question of -- yes -- to full -- when we see the full benefit of the synergies we mentioned, we express it as 2029 just because as I said, we do expect the closing of the transaction to only happen in the second half of 2026. So we do expect a full benefit of the synergies to be there in 2029. But it does not all happen in the last year, of course.

Yes. And Benoit, maybe on your NII. Arguably you could say NII for this quarter is slightly lower, but I want to reiterate here that is mainly by our own decision. So it was a targeted wealth management campaign. And there, you see a very good NNA growth of almost EUR 4.3 billion. So now it's key that we start transferring that in valuable assets.

Number two is an acceleration in the ABF wind down, specifically portfolio sale in the U.K., which is ahead of plan. And what Marguerite already said that is the implementation of what we call here [ARNA]. And that has clearly a positive impact on our position with the intermediaries.

Also, if you look at our market share now up till 19%, so for Q4, we expect a modest improvement in the treasury results, as well as stable deposit margins. And if you look at the update on the sensitivity slide, what we discussed earlier, the inflection point of the replicating portfolio is already reached this quarter or, I should say, a start of Q4. So that brings the decline in the replicating yields to a standstill. But if you look at the sensitivity, the tailwinds will be very limited initially and will be more pronounced in the second half of next year.

The next question comes from Benjamin Goy from Deutsche Bank.

Two questions, please. So first, on NIBC, again, which over the last 6, 7 years, has built up a significant off-balance sheet mortgage book. Just wondering your thoughts on that part of the business because you very much rely on balance sheet growth? And then secondly, you also call it a low execution risk. I'm just wondering, when you look at capital return going forward, do you basically take your current capital ratio minus 70%? Or would you include a buffer given the uncertainties and execution risk?

Thank you very much. So on the -- on your question of the originate-to-manage portfolio that NIBC has and that represents roughly half its portfolio. We see, it as actually an interesting and value-added opportunity for ABN AMRO because it's not something we were doing already, and we see opportunities with that. So we welcome that addition in our business model. And I confirm that we've been thoroughly assessing the CET1 impact of these transactions that amounts to 70 basis points. And this takes into account a very prudent approach to the transaction, including all form of day 1 provisioning and so on that may be needed. So I would say, so it's a fully loaded 70 basis points.

The next question comes from Chris Hallam from Goldman Sachs International.

Just a couple of follow-ups. So first, just on funding synergies. Ferdi, I think you said those have been negligible, i.e. not particularly incremental to the 18%, but I'm just wondering how that works given their funding mix, which is much less skewed to deposit funding than your own and their own deposit funding cost, which is higher than yours. So just is this a reason why either you wouldn't fully change the funding mix or why you would expect to see a very high level of deposit attrition?

And then second, I acknowledge we've got the CMD coming up very soon. But just looking specifically into 2026, as you're going through the year-end budgeting process, what are the key items you're focused on for the cost side of the business? Are there any specific items or challenges for ABN AMRO that we should consider for 2026 in particular? Both for ABN I guess, on the one side, but also for the industry more broadly?

Ferdi, I will let you take this.

Yes, Chris, I'll start with the first one. So absolutely, there is a potential. But again, the argument here that we try to be prudent and specifically look at cost synergies. Of course, there can be some revenue synergies, but also the funding synergies here. It's too early to start communicating on the potential here, and some of the funding synergies, arguably will be further out also beyond the indicated 2029. But for sure, this provides potential on top of the indicated cost synergies.

And on your question. Well, '26 happens to be the first year of our strategic plans. So I promise we will share everything on '26 as well as for the following years at our CMD in 2 weeks. This being said, I believe in discipline and I believe in saying what we do and doing what we say. We've been very clear from the beginning that rightsizing our cost base, steering on capital and pursuing profitable growth are all 3 like motives. And so 2026 will look like that.

The next question comes from Farquhar Murray from Autonomous.

Just 2 questions, if I may. Firstly, more broadly on M&A. You now have kind of 2 integrations with HAL and NIBC. Do you think there's sufficient management room kind of bandwidth for another deal in the near term?

And then maybe coming back a little bit to HAL actually, as an integration given it's come on board post closing. I just wondered if you could give us an update on how that business is performing as compared to the original expectations of that acquisition. In particular, I'm thinking about the cost synergy target of EUR 60 million there?

Thank you very much. So I'll take your first question on bandwidth, and I will let Ferdi comment on the HAL integration. I think that was your second question.

So do we have the bandwidth? Yes, we do. We are moving at pace. We have a very strong management team. I'm very happy with our Executive Board. And basically, Choy, who is in charge of Wealth is very much involved in the integration of HAL and making it a success. We have colleagues that have been very much involved in the due diligence regarding NIBC, and who will be, in due time, fully ready also to be there for the integration. So we're very confident that we have all it takes to make this integration a success.

With M&A, you don't necessarily plan in advance, but we will know how to be opportunistic, if needs be, as I said, always with discipline and only if it's shareholder accretive.

Yes. Maybe just on Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe, as indicated earlier, cost synergies, year 3, EUR 60 million. Also, if we look at the first quarter after consolidation, we're confident that we're going to reach that. So no unexpected surprises in here. We've also said that we need around one-off cost of around EUR 90 million, 1/3 integration cost and 2/3 restructuring cost.

We booked so far this year around EUR 8 million in integration costs. The integration is fully on track. So the legal merger between HAL AG and ABN AMRO is to be completed by the end of 2026, and that will really simplify the further integration.

So the bottom line is here over results, of the results what we see now is in line with expectations, and we're very confident we're going to reach the EUR 60 million run rate synergies in year 3, which is 2028.

The next question comes from Delphine Lee from JPMorgan.

My first question is just going back to NIBC and just your thoughts about M&A in general. I mean just wanted to understand kind of what areas of priorities you would have? Would it -- I mean, because is the intention in the long run to continue to strengthen the position in the Netherlands? Or would it mean more to kind of diversify a little bit away from your mortgage book through private banking or corporate banking? Just trying to understand a little bit kind of where your focus is M&A-wise?

And my second question is just in terms of excess capital and the usage, and how you allocate capital more generally speaking, is the intention over the long run to sort of manage it to kind of increase the payout? Do you still think there is room with the transaction further down the line? Just trying to think about how you manage your capital with buybacks and what we should expect?

Thank you very much. You are anticipating on what we are going to share in 2 weeks. I will only reiterate that, we only consider M&A when it is disciplined, when it is shareholder-accretive. We think that adding scale in our home market is a smart, strategic move, and back to how acquisition that the bank recently completed and Ferdi was commenting on. This is also a strong strategic fit for us as we grow in wealth in Northwestern Europe, which is part of our strategy. But we will describe all of this at our CMD.

In terms of our capital position and our capital usage. Again, this will be the topic of CMD in 2 weeks. But basically, in a nutshell, we will continue to optimize our RWA both in data and from steering more to come on that.

The outcome of our capital assessment will be communicated with our Q4 results, including potential capital distributions. But we have a strong balance sheet and a strong capital position. And I think, yes, the rest will come. Bear with us for 2 more weeks.

The next question comes from Juan Pablo Lopez Cobo from Santander.

First one is regarding NIBC. Probably I missed some of the KPIs, but you mentioned that the deal is highly accretive. Regarding EPS accretion, if we assume, let's say, EUR 100 million net income coming from NIBC and the EUR 100 million synergies lower post tax. Is it fair to assume an EPS accretion of around 7% to 8%. Does it sound reasonable for you? That's my first question.

My second question is regarding the deposits campaign. If you could share some color on this deposit campaign? Volume can we assume around EUR 3 billion, cost probably around 2% or slightly above 2%. And maybe duration, if I got you right, I don't know if we can assume the NII impact in this Q coming from the deposit campaign could be something around EUR 15 million, EUR 20 million. So it will be interesting to know to listen the duration and what percentage of these deposits you think will stay in the bank?

Thank you. Thank you very much. I will let Ferdi answer both your questions. Maybe just a clarification because I'm not sure that we fully agreed on the figure. But when we mentioned cost synergies, it's EUR 100 million post tax. So basically, pretax, it's higher, just to clarify that point. Ferdi, I'll let you go into the EPS accretion.

No. I think if you look at the underlying, how you come to your calculation, fully synergized a profit of around EUR 200 million, indeed, you would come in 2029 to around 7% EPS accretion. And then again, if you look at the overall deposits, yes, we assume some outflow, but we expect it to be limited from the overall deposit campaign.

And the most important part of the targeted deposit campaign is increased our net new assets. It had an impact on our on overall margins, but now it should really translate into valuable assets. So that is a transfer into either discretely portfolio management either in advisory or private markets.

But usually, what we observe is that it takes usually 6 months for bankers to actually transform into more valuable assets.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Anke Reingen from RBC.

It's just 2 number questions, please. Firstly, on the other income, that was quite big this quarter. And I just wonder, is it sort of like a run rate? I mean, a number of banks talked about NII and other income of their value result, like mix effect. Should we see that the Q3 other income could be a run rate going forward?

And then on the deposit costs, is there sort of like a change in trend where in the past, we were talking about cuts and savings rates. We're now talking about some selective campaigns on higher deposits with a benefit to volume? Would you say the trend has changed here?

Thanks. Ferdi, on these 2 questions.

No, let me start on other income. It was low this quarter at EUR 28 million. So also quarterly-on-quarter significantly down. And we explained that the main impact here is number one, equity participation. You're always dependent when the revaluation is done. And in Q2, we had a successful exit of the portfolio. ALM results is always volatile. And in this quarter, it always depends on your economic hedges and hedging effectiveness. But the main driver this quarter was lower fair value revaluations on the IFRS 17 and it was specifically related to one-off correction of past bookings in the March fiscal, and that impact was roughly EUR 30 million.

So if you look for the coming years, other income is volatile by nature. It also includes XVAs, ALM results and private equity revaluations. But overall, excluding incidentals in the past years, it was around EUR 450 million. And if you would also exclude volatile items around the EUR 400 million.

Then if you look at changes on pricing. No, the deposit campaign was very targeted at Wealth Management. So we really target the specific client group. And as said earlier already, we are willing to do that at very low margins because there, we see the opportunity to transfer that in valuable assets. So it's absolutely not a change broader how you should look at our prices.

The next question comes from Jason Kalamboussis from ING.

I'm coming back to what Tarik mentioned. While the deal is good value for money strategically and from a higher level, it looks like it distracts to what I thought was a clearer focus on wealth management. So if you have any additional thoughts, welcome there. So moving on to wealth. Could you please provide the split year-to-date of the inflows in custody and the rest? And is it something that we could see provided on a quarterly basis?

The second thing is on HAL. What are the -- how does the AUMs that you brought in split again into -- can you split out the custody and cash elements, if possible? And my third question is, is the reasonable assumption to -- when I'm looking at your AUM to assume that most of the custody and cash assets above 75% are in the Netherlands, that will be very useful.

Thank you very much. I'll take your first question, and we'll let Ferdi answer the 2 others.

In terms of strategy, we believe that it is a perfect strategic fit to actually keep growing and at scale in our home markets. We have the platform for that. We already have 5 million clients in the Netherlands, NIBC adds, roughly 500,000 new retail clients. We do believe in scale and in using our platform, both in mortgages and savings in the Netherlands.

This being said, we also do believe that wealth management is an extremely good business of ABN AMRO. I mean we have a strong #1 position in the Netherlands with the market shares of the 35%. We have now a strong #3 position in Germany. We also are present in France and to lesser extent in Belgium. So we will share our strategy for 3 businesses at our CMD. But indeed, we do like very much the wealth management business.

Ferdi on the 2 other questions?

Yes, Jason, number one is the split between custody. Overall, you should see that there's the difference between core net new assets and total net new assets of core net new assets. So overall, core and net new assets we had a very strong quarter. As discussed earlier, mainly reflecting the cash inflow from targeted offerings and indeed, the majority of this was wealth management in the Netherlands. Total NNA plus EUR 4.3 billion. So the custody is included in here for this quarter was plus EUR 1 billion more or less. If you look at the total custody within Wealth Management of course that was also a question, I think that is around the EUR 50 billion today.

Then I also think, but I didn't hear you that well this, client asset inclusion of Hauck Aufhäuser Lampe. So in total, this was around EUR 26 billion and the split there was around EUR 23 billion in securities and EUR 4 billion in cash. The majority of that inclusion is in securities.

That's very useful. Just a quick follow-up. I mean, on the NIBC deal, what I'm a bit surprised is that the fee element is quite small. So you have less than 10% that's coming in fees. So that was a bit the sense of my question that, yes, I understand the scale. And also it's a good deal financially. But on the other hand, I would have thought that your focus would have been towards increasing the fee side within your income, whereas this goes a bit the other way. But again, If you have any comments, that would be great.

I understand your question. As I said, it adds scale, which is, I think, a very positive strategic move, and it's also financially very accretive. So we saw it as 2 very good reasons to pursue this acquisition.

Yes, maybe to add there, it's also had the addition of the savings account to the BUX platform, that might provide at least investment propositions there where we are absolutely focusing on transferring NII into fees.

There are no more questions at this time. I will now hand the word back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Well, I thank you very much all for your questions this morning, and we look forward to welcoming you at our Capital Markets Day on November 25. And for the time on, goodbye. And thanks again. Have a great day.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us after lunch session. We had time to get lunch. Marguerite I'm very pleased to welcome you to our conference. I think it's -- this is your first time meeting the investors community as new CEO of ABN AMRO. I mean, your attendance is highly appreciated.

So clearly, I mean, ABN is seen among the remaining fuel profitability turnaround stories and your appointment is seen as a catalyst to drive this change. The shares performed well this year, up 70% year-to-date outperforming sector at 30%. So clearly, the market is on board, and there will be positioning ahead of your CMD on 25th November. So we keep that in mind in our interaction, of course.

So before we start talking about your strategic vision and your profitability, I want to start with the -- talk about the budget day, which was, I think, this week. And then the Dutch elections, to see what's been any highlights in these budgets and what you expect that will impact banks in terms of bank taxes or any policies?

Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having me. And I hope indeed that you had time to have lunch, because I know this afternoon can be really long.

To your question on the budget in the Netherlands and the political landscape, I was in the Hague yesterday because it was an important day it's called Prinsjesdag Day. So it's a day when not only do you have the King speech, but you also have the presentation of the budget.

This year, of course, a lot of questions in the budget are left unanswered because as you're well aware, we have elections on October 29. So many of the, I think, most important budget choices will be made after the elections. Once the coalition is formed, it will probably be a coalition. So -- and to your point, no, there was no change in the banking tax in the budget memorandum that was shared yesterday. But again, I think more to be found after the election and the coalition is formed.

Very good. So you're French...

I am.

You worked at [indiscernible] BNP. You came with fresh eyes into ABN a few months ago. And your first time you came in and you met the team and so on, what really stood out most of you on ABN when you started?

I was privileged in being able to meet many colleagues over the past few months, but also clients and of course, investors as well. And if I were to summarize what I think are the assets of ABN AMRO, I would say first that we have strong roots and very great brands. And I've put an asset brands because we have ABN AMRO, but we have McPherson, we have Bethmann in Germany, but now more recently HAL, Neuflize in France, just to name them. So very good brands. That's number one.

Number two, we have great market shares, of course, in the Netherlands, which is our home country, in retail, in wealth and the -- in corporate. But in Wealth & Corporate, we also have, I think, a very interesting Northwestern European geographic footprint that works well for us. So very good market shares. And also, I would say that we have good market shares in attractive segments of the market.

If I take retail, for instance, we have very good market shares in the mass affluent segment that is also a natural feeder to our wealth business. Good brands, good market shares, very committed teams, and I also feel a good energy level in the bank over the past few months. So that's -- that I enjoy a lot. And also, and that's something I like. I think there is also room for upside, room for improvement. So that makes for a good mix.

Very good. So then how do you plan to leverage the bank's strengths to drive that meaningful change will you see?

So yes, going forward, we will be leveraging, as I said, on our strong assets. We envision to build our strategic plan on what is -- what are our strengths and on fixing, improving what needs to be fixed and improved. We can already name rightsizing our cost base is one of them. Our cost income is higher than our peers.

I would say, steering better on our capital is the same one. And of course, looking for what I call profitable growth. I do not envision growth without profitability. It doesn't happen in one day. It takes discipline. It takes focus and drive. But these are clearly 3, I would say, 3 key topics we will probably be building upon for Capital Market Day. Probably it's too much. We will build upon and elaborate in our Capital Market Day in 10 weeks.

Yes. So we will come back to this a few pillars you just mentioned. But conceptually, I mean ABN AMRO has been delivering returns that are super versus the average industry. So where do you see the ROE, not in the numbers, but basically positions for the -- versus the sector? I mean, with the works you will be doing and announcing, is there an engine to be able to be up there with the profitability of the sector?

I think -- and going back to the 3 pillars, and I'm going to give you some illustrations of what we've been doing already since April because, yes, we are working on strategic plan, but we are not standing still. So just -- and that I think gives you a good -- some insights on how we want to work going forward.

First, on cost, we've been very clear at that because improving our profitability means working on our ROE, and that means working on all the parts of components of the ratio, and not only the equity part, but also our revenues and our cost base. So this being said, with respect to our cost base, we have been very clear on our cost guidance this year between EUR 5.3 billion and EUR 5.4 billion. And we are steering on that, and we are confident we will reach this cost target.

We started by implementing a few things. For instance, starting in April, a hiring freeze that we implemented in the bank. You've seen some of it impact at Q2, but that was, of course, moderate given the fact that it had only been recently implemented in April. You'll see more of that and more significant impact in Q3. So steering on cost is a big one.

The way we look at our capital, if you look at the past quarters, we have already been steering more capital. We have reached an inflection point on RWAs. And we have been able to improve our risk-weighted assets by EUR 4 billion to EUR 5 billion in the past quarter, just actively steering on capital, for instance, doing basic stuff like improving the way we source our collateral or getting external ratings for corporate clients when we didn't have sometimes some and so on.

So these are just basic uplifts that we are getting. So I strongly believe in this form of discipline to work on the capital and the cost. And also what we are doing right now is having a thorough review of all of our activities just to make sure that we look at everything with, I would say, a neutral eye, making sure that we are in activities where we are relevant and where we can be profitable, and that leads us to some choices.

If I were to take an illustration of a choice we recently made in asset-based finance, we took the decision to stop this activity in Germany, stopped this activity in the U.K. and France because we didn't think we were relevant there. And where we're not, well, we shut it down so that we can actually redeploy the capital more meaningfully. Just to give you an illustration of how we think about things.

But that's a very good overview. And if I may, we will probably spend a bit more time on all these components. So on the cost side, I mean, where -- which is a key focus, and I think it's high in your priority as well. Where do you see the areas where -- and maybe we can go by divisions, if you want, where you can see some upside there. I mean talking about and something we already discussed in the past in earnings calls about FTEs, internalization of consultants, IT systems...

So of course, we will be going into details at the Capital Market Day and certainly division by division, but I can give you another illustration on how we steer that. And I will take an example coming from our IT for a variety of reason, inherited from our history when ABN AMRO was a more complex banks than it is today.

We have still a fairly fragmented IT landscape with -- we have more than 3,000 applications running, okay? This was also partly inherited from the merger between ABN AMRO and Fortis Netherlands at the time. And so we actively steer on that because it enables us not only to improve our cost, but also free up resources to invest. And also, it makes us more -- I mean, we can go faster. We are more efficient when we do that.

So we have a program in our bank that we call our IT value case, where we decommission very systematically all this -- all the applications that are not strictly necessary to free up capacity from what we call keep the lights on and allocate it to more, I would say, innovative venues. And for instance, that's what we've done recently in -- are you familiar with Tikkie?

Yes, application. I mean I'm not sure...

I mean for Dutch people okay -- anybody who has ever been in the Netherlands should be familiar with Tikkie. But when you're not Dutch, it's less maybe well known. So Tikkie is appear to be application that was in fact invented by ABN AMRO a few years ago. It is now a word in the dictionary, really.

I mean when you -- everyone is using it out of 18 million Dutch people we have 10 million Tikkie users. I'm going there because ABN AMRO is actually a very innovative bank and the Tikkie team has recently in less than a year, put together BUUT, which is the neobank, we've just launched a few weeks -- I mean, weeks ago, dedicated to teenagers and their parents.

And the Tikkie team has been able to develop that in less than a year. And to my point on why do we steer so much on our IT as well is that if you have a more simplified IT landscape, you are much faster, more cost efficient and more time to market. So we've been able to create BUUT in less than a year, thanks also to these efforts that are being done in improving our IT landscape, just an illustration. I'm referring to things that are public because, of course, we will say much more about that at our Capital Market Day, but it's just to give you a bit of a sense on how we think about this.

No, I'm aware. And thank you very much doing the exercise because it's so close to CMD and you want to keep spoil most of it. So I appreciate you're sharing as much as possible with us today.

I have the Head of IR there. Just making sure that I don't spoil anything. So it's just...

So it's been a very important event for you, so we don't want to -- so I mean, staying on costs, clearly, the focus is on taking out costs, given your cost/income level and so on. But how do you see in your thinking on the investment side? If you look at, for example, the wealth management or others, are you allocating as well the investments in your thinking of the future of ABN?

Yes, of course. So just to give you -- you mentioned wealth. This is a business we like a lot. This is a business where we have a leadership position in the Netherlands where we also operate, as I mentioned, in Germany, in France and Belgium.

And the way we look at it, provided we find relevant opportunities, and I'll give the example of the recent acquisition that the bank was able to complete with HAL. We closed the deal at Q2. This is a business where we can grow both organically and if it happens inorganically.

And what we did with HAL with this acquisition, we actually were able to consolidate now a strong #3 position in wealth in the German market, which we like a lot. And at a very good, I would say, return on invested capital. So -- our strategic thinking will be primarily focused on organic growth.

But if there are things that are relevant for our bank with a good strategic fit in geographies we know, in businesses we know, I don't believe in doing things you're not good at. So focusing on the things we do well. If there is a good strategic fit, if there are revenue synergies, if there are cost synergies, these are opportunities we may be looking at in due course, always with discipline.

Still on the cost you've announced -- I mean, you haven't announced actually it was in the press, but I think you confirmed the restructuring plan on the risk functions. I understand it's not significant, but...

No, but it's good you mentioned it because I think it's a good illustration of our mindset and the way we do things. We -- yes, we announced that we are reorganizing our risk function. We are simplifying our risk function. And what are we actually doing? Several things. First, we reviewed our risk controls throughout the bank just to make sure that our controls were focused on the risks that mattered and were well designed because sometimes it's a bit like in your house, when you don't pay attention, you keep piling things up and sometimes your cupboards are full.

And well, it's always good to have a little review of is everything that certainly necessary. So that was one. Something else we want to do is also make sure there were no duplications between what we have in first line of defense in the business and the second line of the defense because sometimes we were doing a bit -- we were duplicating controls. So with that in mind, you are able to simplify your risk organization.

Not only do you bring -- do you have an impact on your cost, but you're also more efficient, you focus on what matters. And at the same time, it's not only about less people, but it is also about bringing more seniority in the game. So we are also recruiting people at a more senior level, including the management team of risk of Serena Fioravanti. And we do that because what we want with risk is for risk to be a strong countervailing power in the bank on the risks that matter and play that role. So this is a whole -- I take this example because this is really not just about our cost or everything, but this is about simplifying the bank and being more efficient. So yes...

Thank you, Mike. The other area you mentioned is optimizing the capital position and the capital efficiency. This is a project you've engaged in already for a few years. And as of Q1, Q2, you kind of completed that project. So maybe you can describe us where you are in terms of this data quality and model updates and review where you are there? And what does the future have in store in terms of -- I think you already mentioned the more use of SRT securitization to improve the profitability. So I don't know how much you can say on that?

Okay. So yes, as you mentioned, yes, in Q1, we successful transition to Basel IV. We also completed the simplification of our model landscape, i.e., moving our [indiscernible] portfolios to SA. And so that was successfully completed. It means now that we have in that respect, something that's even more predictable, reliable. And as I mentioned, and I think you've seen it also in our figures, we have indeed reached this inflection point in our RWA.

And we do have this active steering in mind. You mentioned what we've done in terms of improving our data quality. I mentioned how we source our collateral, for instance. So we are very focused on that. There will be more to come, also probably more widespread over time.

But for instance, that's the case for the SME support factor that is positive as well yet to come. So yes, more of that, more of the steering on our RWA and also this strong view on how we allocate our capital, especially in our corporate bank, which among our 3 divisions is the one that needs to be the most mindful about its profitability.

Okay. Thank you. So on allocation capital, I wasn't going there, but you mentioned on the corporates. I mean if you have tomorrow, I mean, to allocating capital, what's area you think it's the division that you would probably see decent returns in a decent time frame.

Okay. So...

I know we are going maybe...

Of course. No, no, no. So of course, we'll have more on that at our Capital Market Day because at the end of the day, this is what a Capital Market Day is all about. There is a -- this is about how you allocate your capital within your business, but also what are -- what is the return on capital, how you think about inorganic versus organic growth and so on.

And of course, this will be shared at Capital Market Day. This being said, and this is why I mentioned that I do believe we expect from each of our business lines profitable growth, i.e., when growth is not profitable, we don't think this is a priority for that business. So this is a key metric of more -- of the way we allocate capital. In our Corporate Bank, we have a very profitable business with clearing, where we have top 3 position in the world, actually. And we also have areas of improvement, and this is what we're going to be sharing.

Okay. Then talking about capital return. So you've announced a EUR 250 million share buyback in Q2 market was expecting a bit more, although you beat on capital, CET1 ratio. So maybe you can shed the light on what was your -- I mean what you're thinking? Was it because you want to keep most of the announcements and more kind of -- I mean, holistic view on capital return with the CMD? Or there's some other constraints we should be aware of? Because that came as a surprise, right?

So a few things because I do realize that the EUR 250 million share buyback we did at Q2 appeared, say, modest in light of our strong balance sheet position with a CET1 ratio of 14.8%. Why did we do that? And what to be kept in mind?

First, keep in mind that this EUR 250 million share buyback is a delayed share buyback related to 2024, i.e., if you remember correctly, at the time in '24, the bank had shared that it wanted to have fully transitioned to Basel IV in order to better assess its capital position and that the share buyback related to '24 would be announced at Q2 '25. So that's what we did at Q2 '25. So this is delayed share buyback.

So as also we shared at Q2, we will assess at Q4 '25 our capital position and potential share buybacks related to 2025, okay? So that's one. If you can follow me between...

I've been following you...

That's cool. So that's one. The second point to also bear in mind is that also, you're right, going into our Capital Markets Day, wanting to do a full review of our situation, we wanted to keep some optionality.

Next, we also had a prudent view on the macroeconomic circumstances. We are going through volatile times. So this was, I think, only fair. We wanted to take into account the full impact of the HAL acquisition that we had closed at Q2. So that was another one. And last but not least, and we were very transparent on that. We also shared actually in the draft decision we got from the ECB, the fact that our Pillar 2 requirements would be increased by 35 basis points, primarily on the back of interest-only mortgages, which is a very Dutch product and basically, that given this increase, we wanted also to make this one public.

So these were all the factors we took into consideration when we decided on this EUR 250 million share buyback. But of course, we will be sharing our capital framework during our Capital Market Day in -- on November 25. And we will carry on based on our assessment of our position at Q4 '25 potential for share buyback in '25.

So to understand better the sequencing, so you have the CMD where you will set your dividend policy, whatever payout is and then distribution on top. Currently, your policy is a 50% payout. And then every year, you assess the capital position, and then you announce distribution and buyback and so on. So given that you'll announce a policy in November and then you will have the Q4 results in February, we will end up in the same situation. So we'll have the payout and then we'll have to wait for the Q4 in February to get the additional distribution. Is that understanding correct or...

You will have the capital framework in -- on November 25, basically. And that will be for the duration of our strategic plan. So that will give visibility on how we look at our capital allocation. And then we will assess, as we mentioned in -- actually last quarter already, our situation for potential additional share buybacks at Q4. Yes.

That's Q4. And on the capital level, we've seen that -- so your target is current one is 13.5% CET1. Clearly, that's been raised towards 13% target in the industry. Now we see some other banks doing the long-term, short-term kind of targets, short-term 13%, and long term back to 12%. So a bank like yours, which is actually quite derisked, and I'm sure you will do a good job into make it more efficient and profitable, 13.5% is a level that is actually very comfortable.

You already know, I'm not going to answer this question, right?

So no, I mean...

But nice try, I like it.

But -- okay. So clearly, very comfortable position and there is upside eventually.

Poker face, but keep trying.

So moving to another topic we didn't discuss yet is the net interest income, which is for you, a big part of the revenue revenues. And we discussed a bit of wealth through -- the fees through the world, sorry. On the net interest income, this is an area where when we talk about margins, but then we have the lending growth component. So maybe you can give us a bit of an outlook of what you see in terms of -- on the ground of recovery in the mortgage growth and lending on the corporate side as well, perhaps. And you can -- I don't know, shed some light on your -- maybe your hedging or other components of the NII?

Yes. So of course, NII is an essential component of our revenues. And we give -- we've given a guidance for NII in '25 that we would land between EUR 6.2 million and EUR 6.4 billion. This being said, and I mentioned that I had actually interactions with investors in ABN AMRO even prior to starting my tenure. And I did a reverse roadshow because I wanted to hear the feedback of our investors and so on. And so I do realize that on NII, I hear you, people want always, I would say, more transparency and guidance. So if you look at the different buckets of our NII.

First, for the part of our NII, and that's the bulk of our NII, that's related to or lend -- client activities, lending and, of course, deposits as well. There, basically, we tried to provide as much guidance as we can. I think we are fairly explicit with respect to our lending activities in terms of volumes and margins.

And if you look, those are fairly stable. On the deposit side, it's a bit more difficult to be more explicit because, of course, that would also give, I would say, indications about or commercial policies and that has implications on competition in the Dutch market, if we were to be more explicit on what we are going to do with our client coupon and everything.

So this is why there is probably less information on that part. So I recognize the questions, but it's a bit less easy to be more explicit. Also then you have the other part of NII, which is, of course, our treasury. There, you do have, I think, a part that's quite visible and comprehensible, which is the one that's related to how we invest on our equity.

And there is a part that's a bit more volatile and where we can certainly also make progress in the way we run it. That's related to also hedging strategies because as you realize, our clients, for instance, you are mentioning mortgages where our clients have the ability to also lock their interest rates sometimes for 20 years, 30 years. So of course, our hedging policies are very important, and you see that in the treasury results. This being said, given the current interest rate environment, we do expect tailwinds going into 2026. Long answer on the NII.

Yes, and you were trying to...

I'd try to be shorter for the next ones.

So next question, I would say on the asset quality and risk management. So you've been running with the cost of risk, almost 0 for a while now. Clearly, I think this is not necessarily sustainable in building a plan. You don't extrapolate that. But are there any areas that now with the tariffs with the Netherlands being Central of Europe in terms of -- do you see any pockets of lumpy in the corporate side, on the SME side. And what was kind of through the cycle level you would think is more sustainable?

Okay. Several things on that point. So yes, we do have a very low cost of risk, yes, cost of risk of [indiscernible] in the last quarter. At the same time, just for the sake of being precise, we also released some provisions in that quarter. So the underlying cost of risk would be closer to 4 basis points, which I agree, given this business model is still very low. But it's just for the sake of being precise.

We do have, I think, a very good asset quality position. And of course, we've been very mindful on assessing on our clients, the impact of geopolitical tensions, what would be the direct impact and the indirect impact as well. We've done so through our models, but we've done also through direct client outreach, and we are very comfortable with what we see. Direct exposures in the Netherlands to U.S. export is 5%. I mean it's very manageable in terms of direct exposures. And even, I would say, the indirect effects are manageable.

This being said, we also see -- I mean, it's of a bit different nature, but we also see on the part of our retail clients that they do save more and that the geopolitical uncertainties also lead them to be more prudent. So you have something in the Netherlands that's called the holiday allowance. And usually, it's spent in the holidays. And this year, we saw client savings more of it because I think you see some prudency, geopolitics, but also political uncertainties in the country. So I think that certainly plays a role to a certain extent.

Very good. Maybe one last question from my side is on the government stake, on the NLFI state. I did the IPO back in 2014, and the idea was at that time that government will fully exist within 2 years. We are quite well now. And so the latest is that it will go below 20%. So 2 questions here. I mean, how -- what's the instruments and how fast that could go down? And what's your interactions with the NLFI and in terms of building the strategy, for example?

Okay. So the current stake of NLFI, which is a foundation that owns the shares on behalf of the state, is at 30.5%. And yes, it was announced last week, if I'm not [indiscernible] okay, last week, that this 30.5% would be grow to 20%, and that is 10% tranche would be basically sold through [indiscernible] strategy the same way it has been done with the previous ones. So that's one. So what I think is also interesting in that decision is that this decision was taken in a moment when the Netherlands is under a caretaking government. It means that you don't take any "controversial decisions" in these months ahead of the elections.

The fact that the decision was actually taken shows clearly that this is not a controversial topic in the Netherlands that this is not subject to a change of coalition and that there is a clear mandate to, in due course, and I have no idea when, return ABN AMRO to fully to the market.

And to your question on the relationship with the NLFI, I find it not only pleasant, but very professional. This is a relationship that's grounded on agreements. These agreements are public. So these are rights of information primarily and also the right to advise on the selection of the CEO and Supervisory Board members. So this is primarily what it's about. And so this is our professional relationship fully grounded on an agreement and being led accordingly. So actually, I find it a pleasant relationship.

Very good. Marguerite, any final remarks before we close the session?

No, thank you very much for your time, for your attention. And I'm actually very much looking forward to share more about our story in Amsterdam on November 25, but it will be also, of course, a hybrid event that you can access from wherever you want. Thank you very much.

Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time.