ING Groep N.V. (NYSE:ING) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Matt Clark : Thank you. And specifically, this other line that’s also been quite meaningful on that table, €1.7 billion of benefit this quarter.

Ljiljana Cortan : You would have to be more specific. Which exactly line because I do not have a template in front.

Steven van Rijswijk: Why don’t we come back to that?

Matt Clark : Okay. I’ll take it off-line.

Steven van Rijswijk: Yeah. We take off-line with media relations. Thank you. Sorry, Investor Relations, I’ve been corrected.

Operator: We will take the next question from Anke Reingen from RBC.

Anke Reingen : Thank you for taking my question. Just two small ones, please. On the capital distribution. Is there the comment about the roughly equal steps, could that be under review on other Q3 update because the commentary seems to be a bit more that it could potentially a bit more? And then secondly, on the cost, do you think the 7% growth year-over-year is a good indicator for the full year trend? Thank you.

Steven van Rijswijk: Okay. So with the roughly equal steps, we meant roughly equal steps in terms of CET level moves. So if I translate that, that if there are — if there was a bigger delta between 12.5% and where we are in our capital, we need to make bigger CET moves to come down. So other colleagues already said, hey, but mathematically that means that you would need to do more to get to those roughly equal steps. And I’ve confirmed that I have also made that same calculation. With regards to the 7% run rate, that’s indeed what he said. That’s a clean cost increase of this quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago is 7%, which is inflation, but also the investment that we make in our digitalization and marketing and growth efforts for customers. That is a good run rate trend that we currently see.

Anke Reingen : Thank you.

Operator: As there are no further questions, that will conclude today’s question-and-answer session. I will hand the call back to Mr. Steven van Rijswijk for any closing remarks.

Steven van Rijswijk: Yeah. Thank you, operator. That’s the end of the analyst call. But not before I thank Marieke Bakker because she has been working vigilantly over the last number of years to keep us sharp and also have good conversation with all of you and make all these fantastic presentations. So I would like to thank her. She’s going to move on in ING. She’s going to work in another part of ING, and we’re very happy that she remains with ING, but I want to express my appreciation for Marieke. And I would like to thank you all for again listening and for your questions. I wish you a great day, and also wish you a great summer. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. That will conclude today’s conference call.