So we know it’s a modest increase in Q3, but it’s not a main contributor to the dynamic of our NII.
Noel Quinn: Georges, if I could just add a couple of comments on the VP [ph]. There are two factors that really come into play on Q3. The half year when we talked about our cost position, we had a lighter VP and we had a very strong first six months of the year. There was a lot of economic uncertainty around that time; inflation, interest rates, ACLs, China commercial real estate. So we didn’t want to anticipate exactly what the financial performance would be in the final six months of the year. We were confident of mid teen returns, but we needed to make sure that the final six months traded well. I think as we’ve gone through Q3, we’ve continued to trade well. So I think our expectations now on a full year rate are probably higher than they would have been when we started this year and started to build a financial plan for this year.
So in the context of things, we’ve given an indication that given the strong profit performance and if it continues into Q4, it will be right and proper to share some of that upside in profit compared to original expectations with our colleagues the way that we’ve intend to share the upside in expectations with our shareholders on both dividends and buybacks and a 1%, 300 million top up to VP for the level of performance that could well outturn this year is a reasonable amount of additional VP to put in. I will remind you that VP is not a continuum and a baseline. It is assessed each year on the profit of the bank against targets, and can go up and can go down, but that’s a final determination we’ll make at the end of the year. And we’re just trying to be fair to our colleagues on what they’ve done.
But it’s a factor of uncertainty in the half year over trading performance has become less uncertain as we’ve gone into Q3, and you’ve seen the numbers, and we hope we will continue in Q4 in a strong manner. And if that’s the case, we feel we should reward our colleagues for a very strong performance this year. But that’s the background to it. We remain — both myself and Georges remain absolutely committed to strong cost discipline.
Georges Elhedery: Thank you, Aman. Next question, please.
Operator: Our next question today comes from Joseph Dickerson from Jefferies. Please accept the prompt to unmute your line and ask your question.
Joseph Dickerson: Hi. Can you hear me?
Georges Elhedery: Yes, Joseph.
Joseph Dickerson: Thank you very much for taking my question. Just following up on cost, I suppose how much of the tech and op cost spend was, if you will, necessary versus discretionary in terms of needing to keep up with competitors and so forth? And then the other aspect would be on the trading book funding cost, you’ve guided to greater than 7 billion for the full year. On my numbers, you’re already at 6.2 billion. So that implies the material stepped down in that cost, unless we should be emphasizing in excess of 7 element there. Any color on that front would also be helpful. Many thanks.
Georges Elhedery: Thank you, Joseph. So maybe I’ll answer your second question. It’s fairly easy. You should definitely, as you mentioned, emphasize that in excess of 7 billion, we actually haven’t revised our guidance. We felt by and large that the consensus is in the right place and didn’t need to influence it. We expect the —
Joseph Dickerson: Similar quarterly run rate we should be thinking about?
