ING Bank Slaski SA

WSE:ING

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q1

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome. We're presenting the results of the first quarter 2022. Being very straightforward, as everybody can see what the results are. So I think that our results do not generate any excessive doubts or any unexpected motions.

But let me offer you a couple of comments. And then Bozena Graczyk will lead you through the figures, and then there will be time for the Q&A session.

My first comment. We have always underlined that the aim of the bank in the economy with its mission is to provide the stability. Banks should be stable. And I think that the results after the first quarter show our stability.

Banks are here to offer the stability in order to stabilize the situation in the economy, specifically in the periods of strong tendencies connected with the unpredictability. So banks are here to offer stability. And we definitely believe that the events of the first quarter accumulated uncertainties and unforeseen events. And under the operating scheme of banks, the banks in Poland, including our banks, the banks have implemented the element of stability in the environment around us. The banks are here or are the intermediaries of the monetary policy signals to prevent the cyclical events in the economic situation leading to predictability and the proper operation of actioning in the economic system.

Inflation is the major challenge economically that we have ahead of us. It's not a civilizational challenge. But economically, it's the major challenge. How can bank transmit the signals of the monetary policy, and to what extent is the monetary and economic policy -- to what extent they coherent, you need to judge.

However, in my judgment, we do not address inflation in a coherent manner. What's more, I would say that we signaled the society stating that inflation is unavoidable and that its growth are unavoidable in the months to come. We've seen such signals already, for instance, end of last year, but quarter 1 this year made these signals and unpredictability unprecedented.

The war and the Russian aggression in Ukraine, despite of what many people say, is an element of surprise. The use of war -- the use of economic elements in order to wage the war is visible. War is always an economic conflict. But the cause of the war in Ukraine is an obvious surprise to many. And specifically, it deepens the wave of uncertainty.

How can we combat the signals of uncertainty in the economy? Well, we need to eliminate those elements, which are here, which are possible to be eliminated in order to reduce the uncertainty level and achieve a greater extent of stability, in the eyes of the basic entities operating on the market, including those who steer the economy.

So far, there have been too many signals like that. And at the time of the outbreak of the war, they overlapped, and that's why the confusion, the confusion which produces many assessment, evaluations, which according to me, are not really related to the management, to the mitigation of huge inflation tensions in place.

In this last quarter, on the base of the war, the brutality, violence, and our being the border country with the war-waging country, we've already seen panic. This panic was visible in the shape of the cash panic at the end of February, beginning of March, the number of transactions and the volumes of transactions, cash transactions, ATM payouts and cash registers payout. They were huge, much higher or comparable and even higher than at the beginning of the pandemic.

The reasons for this panic were not that many because the supplies of cash in any currency whatsoever were undisturbed, but the panic was there. So the level of the emotional pressure in our society was huge.

Thanks to the collaboration, the banks, including the National Bank of Poland, the banks helped with the problem. So the panic slowed down, calmed down. But still, we have more cash payouts, which is probably not -- which is probably not a signal of a panic. It has nothing to do with transferring funds abroad at. But it’s the result of what we have on the market. So the hot money scheme.

When the society believes that inflation that has impact on them directly, that this inflation is 12% and that it's going to continue, the society thinks where to keep money and research for places for investments where the value of their money can increase. So consumption spending is on the increase, investments in goods, which are needed or not needed at all, but they are our interest among consumers. Decisions like that are accelerated. People consume more.

That's also visible in the accelerated decisions on the loan repayment. That's what's clearly visible. That was already visible in quarter 4, together with an increase of interest rate. First quarter 2022 is the same, and that will probably continue over the next quarters, 2 or 3. So we have the inflation loop, the more we talk about inflation, the more that is in place with us. That makes the level of unpredictability grow, including in the banking sector.

Given the situation, some beliefs that were presented in the program of the Prime Minister, those were presented last week at the conference, they've minimized a bit the unpredictability, being the reaction of monetary authorities and economic authorities. That's good news because we reduced some element of unpredictability, especially in the environment where there are many.

The impact of those programs on the banking system, they are unknown. We can estimate the values, but we cannot be sure about the final result. The impact on economy, let me put it this way. We need to remember what's the aim of the monetary policy and what's the aim of the fiscal and financial policy. That's counteracting the sources of inflation. Can the monetary authorities impact inflation levels? That's debatable. That's a debate among economies and politicians alike, and it's not easy to measure.

What's important is the fact that, as much as we can, we should limit the pro-inflation and pro-panic signals. I think that's the challenge that we're facing, and that's my appeal to you. So the limitation of the social impact of inflation for all those most impacted by inflation, by the cost of electricity or cost of food, cost of loan servicing, yes, we support that.

And this group should be supported. That's the obligation -- social obligation of the state. If the state decides that the costs of this protection should be borne by banks, it's all right. But we shouldn't, at the same time, indicate or claim that banks are the source of inflation, which is not true.

And the final comment, WIBOR replacement. It's expected to assert an extend because the definition of reference points should be applicable, but WIBOR rate and future solutions, law-driven solutions should not be changed in my opinion.

What these changes will look like, we'll see and we'll provide data, we'll provide background, we'll discuss, will strengthen the power of messaging. But in the current situation, the chart -- the act of challenging the credibility of the banking sector is not a good approach. What we need is a pure regulatory rulings and approaches.

Looking at the first quarter, which was very uncertain, I need to state that other elements of the stability in our system, the level of the digitization, the number of electronic elements, loan granting, interest in the loans, number of clients, they were not different than in the normal economic and strategic situation.

So I repeat. Our obligation is to be stable and we remain stable. The first quarter is the proof of that, and the second quarter is going to continue that way. Of course, we do not know the results of the second quarter. Specifically, we have some regulatory uncertainty, which is difficult to take into account in our plans because it's unpredictable to us as well by nature. That will be -- as much as I'm concerned, I would like to say it's good. It's not hopeless. But the major issue is the war and the suffering of people.

The impact of war on economy is not clear, especially that is overlaps with other elements like difficult supply chains that we face. So the transformation of the economy, production economy and service economy in Europe and in Poland is going to continue. We are optimistic. We think that emotions, economic emotions connected to the war, they will have a stabilizing and mitigating effect.

Of course, we need to continue focus on the war and its victims because the war continues. And let me express my thanks to our organization, our employees for this huge work on supporting those who suffered because of the war.

What’s ahead of us are challenges this year and next year alike. But we are still optimistic we will cope with the challenges. Still, we need to reduce the number of unnecessary signals, unnecessary micro panic events because the goal is always the same, the interest of our customers and clients. And it's difficult to generate healthy economy over a long period of time, if we raise discussions on the basics, especially in the environment or communities, which do not use figures, talking about hundreds of millions of people who cannot repay the loans because of the increase of the reference interest rate of the NBP is too much, is over doing. It's harmful.

Thank you.

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Now let's hear some Numbers. Good morning. A few comments about our financial results in Q1. Let me begin with the most obvious piece of information, our net profit, PLN 793 million after Q1. It's 106% improvement year-on-year. As you can see in the structure of our results, this is due to the improved result on commissions and net interest income. This has improved our ROE, and this is 17.5%. And a few words more after adjustments, it's 16.5%.

Now the net interest income, the dynamic growth of interest rates and our dynamics of loans, it's 15% and 9%, respectively. This has improved our net interest income for Q1. It's 20% growth quarter-to-quarter and 49% year-on-year. And as a result, our margin quarterly has increased by 55 basis points, reaching 3.43%.

It's worth also commenting on what's happening in the structure of net interest income and expenses and the impact on our net interest income and the macro cash flow hedge strategies. I think you know that we have IRS transactions, accruals. And in this strategy, when interest rates were falling, the macro cash flow hedge has a positive contribution; when the interest rates are rising, it has a negative impact.

In Q1, we still have PLN 124 million net income that have contributed to the NII as part of the macro cash flow hedge strategy. As you look at it historically, from the moment, the interest rates started rising, this contribution has been going down quarter-to-quarter. The structure and the strategy influences costs, or expenses and income.

You can see it particularly well on the top graph, Slide 11, where our cost of financing, in spite of rising interest rates, has improved as a result of the macro cash flow hedge strategy directed towards liabilities, and it also influences the profitability of assets and net interest income.

I think you can also see the impact of the pricing of IRS in our revaluation provision. It is going down, of course. And it's about the pricing of NPVs of all financial flows based on profitability curves during the application of the hedging strategies.

So you can see that the valuation has gone down both in Q4 and Q1 of 2022. And I think in this situation, it should be obvious that the impact of net income from macro cash flow hedge on our result will be going down as time passes. I would also like to say that our macro cash flow hedge strategy is something that we're doing consciously. It's how we are managing risks in our ledger. And it's not about optimization in the strong term. We are working on stabilizing our results in the medium and long term.

I would also like to say, and you have probably noticed it already, that from the end of April, we have increased the interest rates on our accounts 4%, up to PLN 200,000 on the account. The fee and commission income increased by 25%, PLN 534 million quarterly. As you can notice, looking year-on-year, this has been allocated to foreign exchange results, 47% growth year-on-year. And from quarter-to-quarter, we are continuing to see rising volumes and transaction activity of our clients, both in the individual and corporate sector. This is about the value of transactions, which are rising very fast.

A similar development in the card result, 49% increase year-on-year, and this is also a result of the activity of our customers and clients. We're noticing the rise in the numbers of cards issued, but also, in the current inflation circumstances, the values of transactions is going up.

Specifically, in corporate, we are seeing a major increase of commission from the granting of financing. This is a direct result of higher demand for loans among our clients from this segment.

We are also seeing 26% growth of fees from insurance. This is due to the rising portfolio of mortgages and the account maintenance fees, 13% growth year-on-year in consequence of the rising number of accounts in the corporate sector, although I think here, it's also worth commenting that particularly this line of our fee and commission income will not continue to grow that much in subsequent periods; we already mentioned that because we have a negative correlation between fees for account maintenance and the interest rate levels. The only negative, if I can put it that way, in terms of dynamics year-on-year of the fee and commission income was linked to the equity market, but I think that's obvious in the context of interest rates and the geopolitical situation.

Now with regard to our operating costs, PLN 931 million. As with every Q1, this increase of cost is particularly visible with regard to regulatory costs. Regulatory expenses, 38% growth. The contribution to the fund for resolution, also the guarantee fund contribution has grown; 94% growth. And in this category, you also have the payment for the Polish Financial Supervisory Authority, the KNF, PLN 22 million, 15% growth year-on-year.

With regard to our own expenses, the dynamics here year-on-year was 6%. We are seeing a rise in IT expenses, and we've already discussed that many times. This is due to all sorts of projects that are underway, also investments in our IT infrastructure. As part of the cost of operation and management in Q1, you also have additional cost related to our grants to Ukraine, PLN 6.5 million in Q1.

Let me also refer to our communication after Q4. From the 1st of April, 2022, we have increased the remuneration, the payroll in the bank. This ties in with rising inflation. And I think it's worth mentioning that in 2021, payroll at the bank did not increase. So this growth takes into account the period that elapsed between previous pay rises at the bank.

One other comment you may want to ask about it, in this quarter for the first time in some time, we have noticed a drop in FTs, 85% (sic). We are outsourcing certain -- 85, sorry, units. This is a result of outsourcing that we've notified you about earlier.

Cost of risk PLN 151 million. You can see it on the slide. PLN 56 million in provisions for macroeconomic changes; PLN 36 million in retail banking and PLN 19.5 million in corporate banking. That's how it adds up to PLN 55.9 million. This is a result of the revision of our assumptions.

The impact this quarter is visible in relation to interest rates, particularly. In the results of Q1, we have PLN 9 million profit from the sale of corporate loans.

Perhaps one other comment related to changes of models. You can read it from our quarterly report. This applied to a mortgage portfolio, on the one hand, considering how quickly inflation rates are rising and how dynamic are the growths of interest rates compared to the period when we've been looking at the indicators. So we've added additional conservative element to our modeling to reflect the correlation between interest rates and the [ PD ] indicator, which can be particularly relevant to mortgages. On the other hand, as part of annual back-test processes, we've identified a surplus conservative aspect of our model, and we've adjusted the model as well. And the impact is the additional cost of provisions of PLN 18.5 million.

In terms of the quality of our loan portfolio, you can see a lot of stability, very good results, very good indicators. No clear symptoms of the situation worsening in any of the segments. Of course, the share of loans in Stage 3 is related to the NPL transactions that I mentioned before.

The improvement in retail, particularly in the mortgage portfolio, can be attributed to the ending periods of classification for Stage 3, people who've enjoyed grace periods as a result of government policy.

About capital adequacy, our result here was 15.2%. I think it's worth mentioning that you have 97 basis points of lowering of this indicator. It is an adjustment of a historical indicator, 85 basis points as a result of Q1. A number of sectors -- a number of factors are to blame. You have the drop of Tier 1, the RWA, and this decreases the Tier 1 capital.

And perhaps a few words of comment about the LCR indicator. It has gone down at the end of Q1 to 126%. As Brunon explained earlier, this drop can be attributed to the cash panic that happened in Q1. That's 1 factor. And another one is the rising obligatory provision as of the 31st of March, which has hampered our short-term liquidity by PLN 3 billion. This increase was important, from 2% to 3.5%. And another element that contributed to this indicator is the IRS transaction hedging that are channeled through 3 to 4 clearing houses. In Q2, this indicator will be considerably higher. March is a period where a lot of changes happened at the same time.

I think that's where I will end my comments about the financial results, and we'll be happy to take your questions now.

[Unknown Executive]

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, let's move forward to questions. I will try to group them according to the topics, if possible or as much as possible.

So let's start from the balance sheet and the loans. And I would combine 2 questions. The first one, do we want to make any extra comments as regards the repayment of mortgage loans versus what Brunon has just mentioned. And how do we see the loan market this year? And how do we want to operate on that market versus at dynamics?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

I will start from the second question, our operations on the market and our approach to the market. Stability, that's number one. High activity, that's number two. So growth is an element of our regular operations. That's why we attract clients. That's why we acquire clients so that we use our services.

So I cannot imagine that our dynamics is anyway to be lower. We want to follow the market dynamics in that matter. There are many discrepancies, but remember that the strategy of the bank is to function in a strongly composed portfolio of various loans, various products, various client needs. So in quarter 1, you can see individual quarters, you can see that some of that portfolio growth slower and some other portion of the portfolio grows faster, but the total of the portfolio in the bank is on the increase, but the composition of that portfolio is strongly diversified.

And it changes over time, advanced payments and with early repayments, specifically mortgage loans, yes, we can see an increase here, early repayment, full repayment, repayments twofold faster than normally. And I mentioned that during our conference about the fourth quarter. This practice continues. It's on the growth, and it will continue in April. We saw it in April already.

It's connected this hot cash on the market. Since people truly believe that inflation is going to grow and the interest rates are going to be higher. We are again facing a situation where the acquisition of mortgage loans, overall, there are fewer, but we are still an important player on the market. This acquisition mainly goes direct towards the fixed rate loans. And we had the same situation 2 years ago when over 50% of our production was based on the fixed rate. Right now, starting from February, we again have a 50% share of mortgage loans following the fixed rate scheme.

In April, it’s been growing and the share of fixed rate loans in the production accounts for 66%. So when the clients can choose fixed rate for 5 years’ time or floating rate, well, we have it in the offer and clients can choose.

Of course, clients make great decisions on the basis of the current level of the repayment installment. And that's why also the fixed rate loans are on the increase. That's a structurally important element.

And again, from the perspective of stability, we offer the choice to the clients, fixed rate versus floating rate. And we are pretty effective in that. It's all variable depending on the levels of increase of interest rates. But let me repeat, the share of fixed rate loans in the new production in April is 64%. The share of fixed rate loans versus the entire loan portfolio, it's 14%.

We also have a significant percentage of loans which originate from Swiss franc loans and are, by means of the settlements, converted into PLN loans, and 1/3 of these loans are loans with a fixed interest rate. And you need -- it's not rocket science to claim that in the future, this share is going to be only higher.

Uncertainly is huge on the market and the problem of Swiss franc loans is huge as well. We, as the society, various organizations and the society, we haven't worked out this problem yet. This problem, the problem of Swiss franc loans and the uncertainty, they are still high.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. In the context of your answer, Brunon, fixed rate loans, mortgage loans were fixed rate. What's our pricing? What's the difference between the percentage rates offered for fixed and floating rate loans?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

That mainly depends on the WIBOR rate, 3 months, 6 months and 5-year WIBOR rates. They are getting approximate -- they are getting closer and closer. The difference is at the level of several basis points, not percentage points, basis points, a few -- a bit more than 10 basis points.

From the perspective of the client, the cost of the installment is not that different amongst fixed rate and floating rate. But the provisions for the future perspective of the household income, how much people need funds for some extra activities, that's also taken into consideration by clients. So that's why clients opt for fixed rate loans.

[Unknown Executive]

One more detailed question. Are there any cases of rejecting an application to transfer a floating to fixed rate loan because of the too low credit worthiness?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

I don't know whether we are capable of answering this question here and now. It's difficult to answer that question. If somebody is in trouble already, the form of conversion will not change much truly. So if somebody is under the restructuring process already, it's reasonable to claim that there will be no option to switch between the floating and fixed rate. But as of today, it's clear and obvious that the number of people who have disturbed relation between income and repayments isn't increased, but still, the number of such cases is not high. And the bank has its conservative approach to evaluate the creditworthiness of its borrowers, which has an impact on the quality of the portfolio. As you can see, as of today, we do not see any major statistical problem.

Of course, we are getting ready to the growing numbers of entities of customers facing problems with repaying their loans because we have an increase of inflation and interest rates, and these are significant growths and the situation of clients and customers is changing as well.

But as of today, well, the problems occur where there is an increased burden connected with interest rates, but also some additional events happen like death, divorce, disease, loss of employment. But statistically, we follow these schemes. It's just the increase of interest rates that fueled up the situation.

I will come back to one topic that is pretty symptomatic, talking about millions of clients who face difficulties of the repayment of mortgage loans because of the interest of -- because of the growth of interest rate. I do not know where these figures come from. These are not facts. Somebody is interested in fueling up the emotions. It's purely an emotional game. It's fake news. And dissemination of fake news in this situation that we are in, that's the -- that's generating panic.

So someone who does things like that, someone who makes such claims should know that they would bear consequences and the responsibility for what we do, mustn't do it. It’s time that social media and different forum in TV, in all that sources, people should feel the responsibility for their words.

And please refer to figures and numbers. Take a piece of paper and a pencil, check the figures. They are publicly available. Everybody knows them; everybody has access to them. Note them down, calculate. It's time for being responsible. Responsibility is the word. Please be responsible.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you for that comment. And to close this topic of mortgage loans, one more short question. Is there a difference in the size of the portfolios as regards the loans granted in 2021, '22 versus the rest of the portfolio?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

Well, it doesn't work that way, ladies and gentlemen. Each portfolio has its characteristics. That's what modeling is based on and big data are based on. We have portfolios, and we arrange these portfolios into packages, depending on the date of granting and other elements describing the client, describing the borrower. And each product from the perspective of credit risk, excluding the fraud elements because they don't -- they can disturb the picture, but if we eliminate the fraudulent element, then in every single portfolio, we have a certain scheme of activity. And the quality of the portfolio, especially if we have a long-term portfolio, we face very certain circulations and certain characteristics.

So drawing conclusions today on the quality of the portfolio that was produced in 2021, it's premature. It's too early. According to the old learnings, if the loan disintegrates over the first 6 months or 9 months, in the old times, that was classified as fraud.

So come back to the basics. It's our profession, and we need to draw conclusions. And all historic analyses shows that the period of 3 to 5 years are needed to see the quality.

Yes, I know your intentions. People contracted their loans at certain conditions. And now the increase, there is a huge increase of the installments. But please remember that there are some buffer elements incorporated there.

An increase in the interest rate is not the source of inflation. Inflation is easy transferable. So if your costs grow, you can easily transfer these increased costs to the next element of the chain, plus the levels of inflations are then transferable into the levels of salaries.

The size of the installment, if it's on the growth and if my income grows as well, so for my, well bank, nothing much changes. My income is growing. At the same time, the cost of living is growing. But it doesn't mean that my well-being is in the destruction. And in the period of inflation, the well-being being disintegrated, well, it happens a bit because inflation is not a good phenomenon, because not everything can be transferable that easily to the next element of the supply chain.

I know I explaining in a complicated matter because economy is complicated as such, and economy is a calculus, when 2 plus 2 equals 4, but you cannot view comments from the perspective of politicians. Just take a piece of paper and a ball pen and count. Economies is the science on rational management. So be rational in thinking. Calculate, use data, count, think those are our friends.

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

And about the performance of our portfolio, I'd like to remind you that our policy was always based on the LTV 80%. So our every customer and client had to have 20% of their own contribution, more than the average. And this means that the income of this person was also higher. So from this perspective, it's an additional safety buffer for high inflation circumstances. And I have no reason to believe that the quality of the mortgage sector would be going down. I don't have access to relevant data, but I'm reading what my colleagues are presenting and what we have in the statistics of the National Bank of Poland, these are publicly available statistics, you can all read them for yourselves.

[Unknown Executive]

Let's now move to the other side of the balance sheet, the issue of deposits and interest, and a question about the expectations of the government. As regards the improvement of interest of deposits by the banks, what do we think about it? And what is the current interest at the bank for new resources, new funds? And what are the plans related to that?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

Bozena has already commented on our offering to the market. We are offering 4 percentage points per annum for new resources up to 3 months, up to PLN 200,000. That's number one.

In the current volatility, every economic entity is creating buffers because all need to be prepared for anything that can happen. Banks as well and the fact that the bank margin increasing compared to previous quarters is something that we can see. Attributing the blame to banks is excessive.

Economic circumstances are closely related to developments in time. And if you assume, and there are no reasons not to assume and we can see things happening, there's some delay, we are seeing increased competition of banks for deposits, and we can see increased competition between banks for loans.

In terms of loans, this means the decreasing bank's margins, but this will not dictate the willingness of economic entities to take up debt. We will be seeing conditions of hot money, and this will not increase deposits. It's important to emphasize the function of the banks. Banks are paying poorly for deposits rather than the interest paid actually by the banks.

If you are afraid that the value of money in your wallet will be going down because that's the impression you're getting about inflation, there is no money, there is no banking system that could compensate for that. Equally, the state's bonds are not compensating for that. So this is the situation of hot money, hot cash.

Liquidity in the market was huge. Right now, it has to shape for a different pattern. Repayment of loans has impact on liquidity, and this will generate aggressive stance of banks in terms of competition, and you do not have to be a profit to see that. That will happen. Whether it will change the condition of cash in your wallet and the bank deposit, well, I don't think so.

But gradually, as the pattern persists in a situation where we've reached the peak of inflation, where these messages are going to spread, we will be able to reverse the trend, right? Inflation is a highly specific problem that requires specific kinds of management, but it's about addressing the unpredictability, which results in excessive short-term consumption, and it creates a pattern that is driving this. You basically have to mitigate it.

So banks will be increasing interest. We are standing at the level of 4% per annum. But if you look at the result of these actions, it will be limited in the near future. But with every month and quarter, as the tendency, this vicious circle of inflation, interest rates, inflation, interest rates, this will be mitigated and will be moving to the other side. The cash panic that has taken a lot of resources from the banking sector is behind us. People are going to be coming back to the banks. That's what we expect.

We are looking at the payments in and out using our ATMs. You can see that April is back to the previous normal rather than the outstanding, the outlying situation in March. Some cash is going back to our accounts, and this is not related to the interest that is being paid. This is our comment, but I think it applies to the whole banking sector.

[Unknown Executive]

Now a few technical questions about interest expenses. Why is the interest expense on deposits has gone down year-on-year and quarter-to-quarter?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

I think I've already provided an answer to this question, at least partially. Our macro cash flow hedge strategies are also applied to liabilities, our deposits and this way, in the situation of rising interest rates, they are driving down our cost of financing.

[Unknown Executive]

In this context, 2 additional questions. Can we disclose the impact of macro cash flow hedge split into revenues and expenses? And why the impact of macro cash flow hedge in Q1 is still positive as the valuation is negative?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

I have the information that I have shared. The net impact of macro cash flow hedge and its positive contribution is PLN 124 million to our margin in Q1. I don't have it split into the assets and liabilities. But I think that it also shows the scale of the contribution, particularly if you compare this to -- these contributions to the interest margin in previous quarters, where you can see that the reversal of the interest rate trend. These contributions, the positive contributions are starting to go down.

Why is it still positive, the impact? Well, this is due to the periods and the duration of IRSs that we have contracted. Our macro cash flow hedge strategy is not something that we started last night. It's been with us for years. It's always been stabilizing our interest margin and net and the accruals related is determined by the periods and the market conditions in which the IRSs have been concluded in the past and the time horizons, the maturity in the past.

So our old portfolio, when interest rates have been stable or going down, this will be extinguishing towards new IRSs which take account the current circumstances, and they will have a different impact on our interest margin.

[Unknown Executive]

Another question that adds detail. When's the loss from total income?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

I think I've answered that. This is a result of valuation based on NPV with all periods and the entire period for which IRSs have been concluded compared to current market circumstances. The curves have slightly moved between the end of the year and Q1, resulting in the negative valuation of our IRSs. And this is also due to the valuation of our securities.

[Unknown Executive]

Now let's move to other revenues, particularly from derivatives. Why such a good result in Q1?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

I would say that a number of elements have contributed. But the key one is the volatility of the market and our trading operations in our markets and treasury. These are, on the one hand, transactions that, due to the volatility of foreign exchange and the market situation, this has been carried out by our clients, but our own activity has also generated a positive result in Q1.

[Unknown Executive]

Now let's move to the expenses, the cost side. There are questions and requests for additional explanation whether the increased payroll will mean 12% year-on-year?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

Roughly, yes. We've talked about it at the previous conference that, that was our intention, as Bozena mentioned.

It's also a stabilizing element. In the year 2021, we did not have a rise, a regular rise. This was due to the pandemic situation and the fact that the market would be adjusting to it. That was a time when we were expecting that there may be a threat to the labor market, and we were protecting ourselves by not reducing our employment levels in spite of lower activity levels. And we were also not taking any steps to cut pay. We were expecting the market to adjust.

Now the inflation pressure positions the remuneration of our staff is affected in a positive way, but we'd like to emphasize that our organization, where we are challenging our staff in terms of their ability to deliver and learn, means that the bank definitely signals that our staff will be paid to protect them against inflation.

We need to be competitive. We need to be sure of our resources. And attracting a talented banker is difficult enough these days. So we cannot afford our people to be unhappy. So I understand that this can generate all sorts of emotion, but we will be sticking to this pattern. We will be maintaining the competitiveness of our remuneration, and we're going to be going hand-in-hand with inflation, 12% to 13%.

[Unknown Executive]

The target number of ING branches, 253 of them working, 200 is the answer.

The cost of risk now. Which segments of industry can be mainly affected by the WIBOR rate increase?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Well, it seems to me that it's worth stating that in the economy sector, Brunon mentioned that, it's easy to transmit -- to transfer high financial costs into the price of products and services. So it's actually difficult to find any causal relation because I understand that's the question, which sectors can be burdened with the higher credit risk.

Due to this adaptability and the possibility of transferring costs into final clients and consumers, this cost is relatively low.

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

Unless other factors would add up. So for instance, loss of the market, inability to export and disruptions in the supply chains, we do not have -- we don't have raw materials for production. So the increase by itself, in the case of this accelerated transmission, should not result in any disturbances. But if somebody exported a lot to Russia and cannot compensate for that, this entity is going to face problems and then increase of funding cost is high and overleveraged.

And in Poland, neither entities or customers, private customers, are over-indebted. That's not the case. But a person of a mortgage loan who lost the job of some misfortune in the family, this person will have problems with the repayment. But an increase of cost, it's not the only source. It’s one of the components, and we see it in all segments, so it’s difficult to draw conclusions. But we are thinking about the entities, which under such criteria face problems, so entities who have excessive exposure to selling or buying towards the markets that are going to face problems, like war-inflicted markets or markets which can face some breakdown in the supply chains.

So we watch them. We watch those who have a low relation of income to loan servicing inflows. These entities need some proactive decisions what to do with them, because there are entities that are not going to survive the situation, and they probably need to move forward to some stable restructuring, or maybe, if faced by a prolonged restructuring, some entities may survive if supported by some liquidity.

If you look at the proposals made by Prime Minister a week ago, you can notice there’s a similar philosophy behind. So there are funds that support the survival of the entities that face lending problems because of the disruptions. So their ability to repay has been disrupted, and it's temporary.

So the loan support fund, yes, it exists and should exist, and maybe there will be a bigger demand for the support from the fund. The Prime Minister indicated the value levels, the memoranda are slightly in and the grace periods are a bit more problematic. We do not fully understand them, but please do not add extra money to those who do not need it. I know it sounds harsh. I know everybody wants more. Everybody wants to get more money. Everybody will say, "I want to get more money." That's true. Justice is not about giving to everybody because they want it. That would be extremely pro inflation. You need to be selective in offering it.

[Unknown Executive]

In the context of this comment, do we see any probability of the economic recession in Poland? And where in the economy, according to ING, where are the greatest mismatch risks?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

Well, we share the huge dynamics in the economy in the areas of some imbalance. And we've been mentioning that for a long time already. And I do not see any reason now to talk about the recession. Then economy is heated up. It is competitive to a large extent. And if we do not make any major mistakes, discouraging entities from operation, honestly speaking, I do not see any reason for thinking towards recession. And the essence of institutions like ours is to notice, is to spot those areas which would face difficulties in operating in the new environment and to act accordingly, the obligation of the bank.

Remember, we sometimes forget, but banks should properly allocate the social capital towards entities and units that generate the greatest value for the economy and for the society. It's a very lofty phrase. But honestly speaking, that's what it's all about. Those entities, which offer greatest competition and value, they face the highest capability of repayment -- repaying the obligations. If we offer money to everybody, the costs increase abruptly.

So it's obvious that we notice areas at risk, overleveraged entities with too high exposure and too narrow patterns. We've been mentioning for years that the Polish economy requires flexibility, not putting all eggs into one basket, which is clearly visible because there are some disruptions in that matter. But the Polish economy has been for years demonstrating its flexibility, its low level of sensitivity.

In Poland, what's more, we have a strong industry and manufacturing sector. Poland is strong from the perspective of manufacturing, which is a very strong factor for stabilizing the situation in Poland. And number two, I do not know whether it's good or bad, but as of today, Poland, it's not excessively indebted as regards its economic entities because starting from 2014, the investments have been poor in enterprises. So there is always some good and bad part into your life. So we should have invested more because we would have higher investment potential, but it's good that we are not over indebted as enterprises.

So these are the elements I would like to draw your attention to. But the symptoms for this actual existing technical recession, they are not in place or we do not see them, but we do not see everything. We cannot see any further epidemic. We cannot see any further war. So we are preparing. We are dreaming about peace, but we're preparing for war.

[Unknown Executive]

In the macroeconomic context, which macro ratios contributed to the higher provisioning in quarter 1?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

I actually answered that question already, but let me repeat. The changes in interest rates and, to a certain extent, also the GDP levels, that all contributed to our provisioning approach.

[Unknown Executive]

Now questions about the capital ratios. And I think that's been mentioned already, but we have this question. What's behind the restatement of data after quarter 4 and the capital excess shrink and what's next? Is the bank planning to increase this excess?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Well, the restatement is not a restatement as such. It's the response to the EBA requirements as to the presentation in proper periods of adjustments referring to the ratios. So the payment of dividend for 2021 impacts our data, but we display the impact of the dividend after quarter 4.

So in quarter 4, we showed a rate which didn't take into account the impact of the dividend payment. Right now, we know that this -- we are already aware of this 97 basis point impact on the rate, and we are displaying it, revealing it. The change of the solvency ratio, the decline by 85 basis points per quarter, but please remember that this was delay -- that our TCR at the level of 15.2%, it's still a very high rate. And our strategy is to have this rate at the adequate levels.

We have proper buffers in place, which offers us operational security and compliance with all the policies in that respect, but our aim is not to maximize that ratio because it's not effective as a matter of fact. Now depending on the evolution of the situation, we have a handful of instruments, which help us react fast so that these capital ratios are at the level that we want them to be at every single period of time.

[Unknown Executive]

Impact on equity from the increased profitability of bonds?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Let me analyze the valuation figures. Well, the impact of the valuation...

[Unknown Executive]

I think it's on the ratio in the context of equity.

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Yes, indeed. So let me start from the following. Quarter-by-quarter, this valuation declined by PLN 261 million. And of course, as we mentioned in quarter 4, we may -- we use the CRR opportunity adjusting the negative impact of that securities valuation on regulatory capitals. From the perspective of the flow of time, which also adjusts the ratios, the maximum values that are taken into account in the calculation, our influence is limited at these levels to really low figures, like 5 basis points versus equity.

[Unknown Executive]

Now moving forward, our MREL targets for the end of 2022, 2023, do you see the need of any further measures?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Well, sure, we’ve just informed about the common decision confirming our share in the SPI structure within the ING Group. And this joint decision also mentions the ratios and the interim periods and the final period, which is end 2023.

And indeed, taking into account our equity and RWAs, we assume that this year, there will be some MREL issue, and this issue should reach the level around PLN 2.5 billion. Future years, too many uncertainties referring to the basic ratios and the basic factors. The values of future issues will depend on many of them. So it's too early to state any values. But as a rule and as a principle, there might be a need for further issues in the years to come.

[Unknown Executive]

Would you like to buy back 55% of NN shares from Goldman Sachs?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

There are no plans. There is a change of the entity that owns NN in Poland. We have an established new shareholder full of good intentions. And we hope for very good cooperation in this respect in order to continue what we've successfully been doing with this TFI, good development, good production, good schemes. We're hoping for good cooperation.

Frankly speaking, with new colleagues, I don't know whether the people we're dealing with are going to change. But without a doubt, we don't see any threat to the functioning of the model in this respect with a new partner who has good healthy approach, big ambitions in Europe, the European market. We're very optimistic about it. And we don't think that the model that we have built together with NN colleagues would change. It's a good model.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. Another question. We keep hearing more and more about the word Slaski disappearing from the name of the bank. And will the name change? And will the headquarters be moved to Warsaw?

[Brunon Bartkiewicz, executive]

There are no reasons and there are no plans. The Silesian aspect is something that we are attached to, and I don't think anyone has any issues with the word Slaski, Silesian. What would be the sense, I have no idea, of changing the name.

[Unknown Executive]

A number of follow-ups to what we've already heard. With regard to the cost of risk and the quality of loan portfolio, you can see a higher share of Stage 2 in Q1. Why? What is the reason? Does the bank have any exposure to Ukraine and Russia?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Indeed, the share in Stage 2 has gone up. This is because macro indicators are influencing the classification for Stage 2. It's also about the conservative nature of our actions, which requires us to verify the watch list. We can see that in corporate particularly where when you consider the change of dynamics of various financial indicators and the link to the market. We are reclassifying loans, and we've had a bit more of these loans in Stage 2 in this quarter.

In terms of our exposure to Ukrainian and Russian markets, I encourage you to read our disclosure in our annual statement. You can see very clearly our direct and indirect exposure. Concluding, I can also say that in terms of direct in nonretail segments, it was PLN 18 million. So for the bank, this is a negligible exposure.

In terms of indirect, dependence on Eastern markets, this was something like PLN 4 billion. A vast majority were strategic companies operating in Poland that depend on what's happening in the Eastern market, so-called state-owned enterprises, enterprises owned by the state treasury. So I can say that our exposure in the corporate segment, it is very, very limited.

In retail segment, we have loans granted to citizens of Ukraine, mortgages. This exposure is well below 1%, and it's for financing real estate located here in Poland. So concluding, I think our exposure, it's more important, of course, after the 24th of February. And in this last aspect, we also have disclosures made by BIG, the entity that is dealing with loan information, credit information.

[Unknown Executive]

Another question about the MREL, M-R-E-L. What are the planned values of Tier 2 issues in the coming years?

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

I think I cannot give you any specific answer right now. In terms of capital adequacy indicators, we are using and reacting according to the need of various indicators based on our solvency indicators.

In the hierarchy of instruments, Tier 2 is a bit more expensive than MREL. And I think that's what the question is about. So we prefer to use MREL first, and then we can resort to Tier 2, if necessary. And I think that means that we're different this way from some other entities in Poland, which are, in most cases, they are operating according to the NPI strategy.

[Unknown Executive]

A few questions remain, but they are repeating previous ones. So I think we can thank you very much for this conference for all your questions. And please come and see us next quarter.

[Bozena Graczyk, executive]

Thank you very much.