NatWest Group plc (NYSE:NWG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Katie Murray: Yes, absolutely. So of the structural hedge 230 billion, 184 billion of that is sitting on deposits. What you know of our hedges that it’s mainly based on our non-interest-bearing assets. So those kind of transactional accounts that we have that forms the large part of the hedge and then a smaller portion is then the instant access portion of the balances that we hedge, but that is much smaller. What we can see when we look at our customers, they generally do prefer to stay in transaction. And what’s been really interesting for Alison and I is that NIBs and NIBs number hasn’t moved really since the end of 2021. So proportionally, it’s still there. So therefore, you can see the kind of robustness of the hedge position within there. And I gave you some guidance earlier as to what we thought it could maybe do, if we did the kind of 12-month loop back from here.

Rob Nobel: Thanks. So just to follow up on the SVR point, so the spreads that you quote on in terms of application rates and backward margins, she said on the back it includes SVR, so what proportion of the spread on new lending will be attributed to people staying on SVR? Is it maybe 10% of the kind of profitability of the spread of the mortgage that you’re expecting?

Alison Rose: If I just give you some, it’s tiny, it’s 4% of our book, in terms of that piece and that kind of back group is 126 basis points for the entirety of the of the book. So I’ll probably let you do your maths yourself. But in terms of that, it’s not a significant feature at all.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jason Napier of UBS.

Jason Napier: I’m afraid I’m going to come back to NIM. And I think Jonathan’s right, the response on sustainable RoTE is super important. But if you want to average 3.2% NIM for the year, after being up 25 basis points in the last quarter, and with rates going up in Q1. It’s got to start falling sequentially during the period. So I wondered whether there was anything at all you could say about the rate at which that happens, or some kind of sense as to where the exit margin is for this year. Because again, there’s some danger in the market that people don’t believe the NIM guidance should you’ve given today. And then, secondly, whether there’s anything that you might say about the size of the balance sheet into next year, it’s one of the few missing pieces when it comes to the 2023 guide, and how we should be thinking about average interest earning assets, including, I guess, yielding liquid asset buffers and the like. Thank you.

Alison Rose: Thank you. Katie, do you want to get that up?

Katie Murray: I’ll kick off and then jump in, Alison. So look at Jason, we’ve modelled at the current base rate of 4%. And throughout 2023, we do expect it to be around that 320 basis points. I do think that we’ve probably hit the end of those kind of these huge increases that we’ve seen in NIM coming through that we all have got very comfortable with over this last year. And actually, we’ll start to see being much more muted as we move forward from here. I’m not going to give you an exit rate sitting in February in terms of what the NIM will do. There’s a number of different puts and takes within there, whether it’s the structural hedge reinvestment, the negative roll off on the mortgage refinancing, what happens on deposits, which we’ve spoken a lot about this morning.

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