I'm very pleased with the results for the first half of the year.
The second quarter was a continuation of the first quarter of the year,
where we've seen increasing income, both net interest income, but also in the fee line,
which really reflects strong activity with our customers,
across really all our business areas.
We also saw that costs continue to perform well and in line
with expectations and a very strong asset quality, credit quality,
as well as a strong capital base, which all in all leads to
a good first half of the year with strong profitability.
If I look across the business areas, we saw good business activity
and in Personal Customers particularly, a good take-up of our savings products
and our investment products, but also an increase in bank lending on
the private side and on the corporate banking side of the business
we saw an increase in lending in Q2, a pickup in customer
confidence that we see flowing through an increased credit demand.
But we also saw very strong debt capital markets activity.
So overall, a satisfying first half of the year.
If we look at the operating environment in the second quarter,
I think, again, a continuation of what we saw in the first quarter.
But clearly, as every month goes by, we get a little bit
more visibility on inflation and on interest rates.
And obviously interest rates started coming down in the second quarter.
And this is all, I think, supportive for increased customer confidence
and increased business confidence.
Having said that, there's no question that our customers are still cautious,
both in terms of spending but also in terms of making investments.
And that should really be seen in the light that interest rates
haven't come down yet, in earnest.
And of course, also that there is a lot of geopolitical
uncertainty and a lot of geopolitical risk out there.
Looking at progress on our Forward ’28 strategy,
which we committed to last summer.
We're making good progress.
It's obviously early days – we are two quarters the way through.
But when you look at the financial results,
clearly we're progressing to plan, if not slightly better.
And when you look at some of the underlying investments that we're making in digitalisation
and technology, on the advisory front, and also on the sustainability front,
I feel really good about the progress that we're making.
So although it is early days,
we’re very much on plan to deliver on the commitments that we made last summer.
So when I look at the first half of the year
and also looking ahead at the second half of the year,
I feel really good about where we are.
We're making good progress.
There is no question that the first half results have been strong
on the back of really strong customer activity across all our business lines.
Customers are slightly more optimistic about the future
as inflation has come down and as interest rates start coming down.
There's still lots of uncertainty, and we still need to see optimism continue
as inflation hopefully comes further down and interest rates also come down.
But I feel really optimistic about the progress
we're making on our strategy and about the second half of the year.