Press Release
Outside trading hours - Regulated information*
Brussels, 10 August 2023 (07.00 a.m. CEST)
"We generated an excellent net profit of 966 million euros in the second quarter of 2023. Compared to the previous quarter, our result benefited from higher net interest income, better insurance service results, a higher level of net fee and commission income and higher trading & fair value income, as well as the traditional seasonal spike in dividend income. Net other income fell, however, as the previous quarter had included a significant positive one-off gain related to the sale of our Irish portfolio in February. Costs decreased significantly, due entirely to the fact that the bulk of the bank and insurance taxes for the full year were booked in the previous quarter. We also recorded a small net impairment charge, as opposed to a net release in the previous quarter. Consequently, when adding up the results for the first and second quarters, our net profit for the first half of 2023 amounted to 1 848 million euros, up by 38% year-on-year.
Our solvency position remained strong with a fully loaded common equity ratio of 16.5%. The results of the recent EBA stress test reflect our strong fundamentals in this regard. Our liquidity position remained excellent, as illustrated by an NSFR of 145% and LCR of 152%, both well above the minimum legal target of 100%.
After having received the approval of the ECB, our Board of Directors decided to distribute 1.3 billion euros surplus capital in the form of a share buyback. The share buyback will start as soon as possible and end by August 2024. In line with our general dividend policy, we will also pay out an interim dividend of 1 euro per share in November 2023 as an advance on the total dividend for financial year 2023. We also plan to further optimise our capital structure by filling up our Pillar 2 Requirement with additional tier-1 and tier-2 capital. Lastly, we received a final ECB decision following model reviews of predominantly our Belgian corporate and SME loan portfolio, leading to a RWA add-on of approximately 8.2 billion euros in the third quarter of 2023. However, the impact of this add-on will be mitigated by a 1.7 billion euros RWA release in the third quarter of 2023, an expected RWA relief of approximately 2 billion euros before year-end 2023 due to model simplification and the fact that roughly 4.5 billion euros of the RWA add-on is frontloading of the IRB Basel IV impact in 2025. You can read more about these capital-related items in the section entitled ‘Our guidance’ in our quarterly report.
Last but not least, we celebrated a special anniversary in June 2023. Twenty-five years have passed since the merger between the Kredietbank, CERA Bank and ABB Insurance led to the creation of our group. In that time, we have evolved from a new Belgian bank-insurer to a bank-insurance group with a focus on five European core markets and a frontrunner in digitalisation. More than anything else, it is the story of our thousands of employees who give their best every day to win and keep the trust of our customers and hence constitute the most important factor in the success that our group has become. I’d like to sincerely thank all those employees, as well as all our customers, shareholders and all other stakeholders for their continuing trust and support. We look forward with enthusiasm to the next 25 years.’
Johan Thijs
Chief Executive Officer
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