2019 Results

Developments in Shared Value scores:

• Customers: improvement in customer-weighted Net Promoter Score to zero (year-end 2018: -1)
• Society: 44% climate-neutral balance sheet (year-end 2018: 37%); Financial Confidence Barometer almost stable at 48%
• Employees: introduction of KPI 'Genuine attention' that better fits our mission; KPI score achieved: 7.7 (on a 1-10 scale)
• Shareholder: a Return on Equity of 7.7% (2018: 7.6%), on the basis of a strong capital position

Growth in current account customers, mortgage portfolio and savings deposits

• Net growth in the number of current account customers by 80,000 to 1.57 million; market share of new current accounts of 21%
• Increase in mortgage portfolio by € 0.9 billion to € 48.2 billion, mainly due to € 0.7 billion IFRS value adjustments; commercial growth of € 0.2 billion, lower compared with 2018 (€ 1.3 billion)
• Market share of new mortgages lower at 6.1% (2018: 7.2%); decrease in new mortgage production to € 5.5 billion (2018: € 5.9 billion)
• Increase in retail savings by € 1.0 billion to € 38.4 billion; market share of savings decreased slightly to 10.4% (2018: 10.6%)

Increase in net profit to € 275 million, mainly driven by lower operating expenses

• Net profit of € 275 million, a 3% increase compared with 2018 (€ 268 million)
• Total income of € 929 million, lower compared with 2018 (€ 958 million) as a result of a decline in net interest income; decline in net interest margin to 1.37% (2018: 1.47%)
• A decrease in operating expenses excluding regulatory levies to € 533 million (2018: € 562 million), driven by lower staff and consultancy costs and a positive revaluation of € 7 million related to a previous contribution to the Deposit Guarantee Scheme
• Improvement in cost/income ratio (excluding regulatory levies) to 57.3% (2018: 58.7%) thanks to lower operating expenses
• A reversal of expected credit losses of financial assets of € 7 million (2018: reversal of € 12 million)

Strong capital position, even after the capital distribution to NLFI

• Capital distribution of € 250 million in 2019 to shareholder NLFI; proposed dividend for 2019 of € 165 million (pay-out ratio: 60%)
• The Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio dropped to 32.6% (year-end 2018: 35.5%); a leverage ratio of 5.1% (year-end 2018: 5.5%)
• The total capital ratio rose to 37.8% (year-end 2018: 37.1%), as a result of the merger between de Volksbank N.V. and de Volksholding B.V.

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