De Volksbank posts 2018 net profit of € 268 million

Summary

Banking with a human touch put further into practice and customer satisfaction increased

Good progress in positioning as a social bank: various initiatives developed in sustainability and improving our customers’ financial resilience.

Developments shared value scores

Customers: improvement customer-weighted Net Promoter Score to -1 (year-end 2017: -3)
Society: 37% climate-neutral balance sheet (year-end 2017: 27%); introduction of a financial resilience score; realisation year-end 2018: 49, with a target score of 50 in 2020
Employees: decline in employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) to -20 (year-end 2017: -2)
Shareholder: return on equity of 7.6% (2017: 8.7%), based on strong capital position

Net growth number of current account customers by 79,000 to 1.488 million; market share new current accounts of 24%
Increase in mortgage portfolio by € 1.3 billion to € 47.3 billion Market share new mortgages higher at 7.3% (2017: 6.8%);
increase in new mortgage production to € 5.9 billion (2017: € 5.5 billion)
Increase in retail savings by € 0.6 billion to € 37.4 billion; market share savings virtually stable at 10.6% (2017: 10.7%)

Net profit of € 268 million, a decline of 19% compared to 2017 (€ 329 million); mainly driven by lower results on investments / financial instruments and a lower release of loan loss provisions
Total income of € 958 million, a € 70 million drop mainly as a result of a € 49 million lower result on investments and financial instruments (exceptionally high in 2017), modest decline in net interest income (by € 16 million, 2%)
Operating expenses excluding regulatory levies at € 562 million virtually equal to 2017 (€ 560 million); impact efficiency measures offset by higher expenses in connection with laws and regulations and compliance
Increase in efficiency ratio (excluding regulatory levies) to 58.7% (2017: 55.4%) driven by drop in income
Lower release of loan loss provisions of € 12 million (2017: release of € 24 million)

Increase in Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio to 35.5% (year-end 2017: 34.1%). Leverage ratio stable at 5.5%
Proposed dividend for 2018: € 161 million (pay-out ratio 60%)