Lloyds Banking Group plc (NYSE:LYG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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So that’s the overall picture, albeit that growth rate was less than 7% if you look at Q2 versus Q1 and that’s the reason that I mentioned around one or two of the individual business lines right there. When we look into H2, the second part of your question, Robin, we would expect the growth to continue as a function of two points, one being activity levels in the businesses as I described a second ago, and two is the gradual effect of some of the strategic investments being built into the overall operating performance of the business. I’m not — we haven’t guided on OOI. So I’ll be a bit careful about what I’d say in respect of the full year’s expectation for that number. But I think we would expect to see continual, let’s say, measured growth going into the second half of this year, even if it’s not quite as strong as a 7% year-on-year growth that I mentioned in H1.

Robin Down: Okay. And just to clarify, when you say growth, do you mean growth versus H1 or growth versus H2 of last year?

Charlie Nunn: I mean — well, I mean, growth versus H2 of last year, Robin. But overall, it’s the comparison, the weighting between H1 and H2, that growth expectation, if you like, maybe slightly more heavily weighted towards H1.

Robin Down: Great. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Raul Sinha from JPMorgan. Your line is unmuted. Please go ahead.

Raul Sinha: Good morning, Charlie. Good morning, William. Thanks so much for taking my questions. Just given some of the recent rate hikes, you had a 50-basis-point rate hike at the end of this quarter. I was just wondering if I could draw you a little bit more on the profile of the NIM in the second half of the year. And I guess within that, I was looking for a little bit more color in terms of how much deposit beta you have seen in terms of what you passed through so far, what you expect to pass through in terms of your assumptions? And if we think about the broader picture of NIM, on one hand, you’ve got the mortgage churn headwinds. On the other hand, you obviously got the maturities on the hedge coming back. How far would we be from a sort of flattish margin trajectory in the second half of the year? Thanks so much.

William Chalmers: Thanks, Raul. To give you some thoughts on that. As you know, we saw the margin come down in Q2 from 3.22% in Q1 to 3.14% in Q2. There were a couple of things going on there, really. In terms of tailwinds, first of all, a little bit of tailwinds from funding and capital, but frankly, not very much. And as you know, the absence of the hedge in Q2 meant that not much was coming from there either. The headwinds that brought it down, as I said in my comments earlier on, predominantly mortgages and then the deposit pass-on pertinent to your question. And that’s what led to the 8 basis point reduction in Q2. Now when we look forward to the remainder of this year, as you know, we’ve increased the margin guidance from greater than 305 basis points to greater than 310 basis points.

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