Thank you very much, and very, very welcome to the DNB's analyst call for the fourth quarter. Present here in Oslo is our CEO, Kjerstin Braathen, and CFO, Ida Lerner, and the CEO of Fremtind Forsikring, Rasmus Figenschou, head of Personal Customers, Maria Ervik Løvold, head of Corporate Norway, Marianne Wik Sætre, head of LCI, Harald Serck-Hanssen, and of course head of DNB Carnegie, Alex Opstad.

Before we open up for questions, Kjerstin will give you highlights from the quarter.

Yes, everyone, just a few highlights on the backdrop with the Norwegian economy that continues to perform well in a world where uncertainty is growing. The GDP growth this year expected to be 1.5%, 1.6% next year.

We continue to see low unemployment, and this is, after all, the indicator that demonstrates financial stability and health in the Norwegian economy. Two rate cuts in '25, we believe there will be one more in '26 before the key policy rate stabilizes around 3.75% for the remainder of the forecast period.

Again, uncertainty is not the same as lack of opportunities for businesses in Norway and also sectors that we are involved in outside of Norway. This translates, among others, to the robust result that you see us delivering in the fourth quarter, but the backdrop is still positive for our business.

The quarter as such, we are pleased to see that NII continues to grow even on the back of rate reductions that are also taking effect this quarter. 1.2% growth in NII reflecting continuous volume and lending growth across segments, as well as positive contributions from other interest-related elements, offset by rate cuts, as well as some mix effects on the NII segments.

The real strong point in our mind is fees that grows 20% this quarter. Two very strong contributors is asset under management that has a strong net inflow of 20 billion in the quarter, and of course also DNB Carnegie with a sharp uptick in investment banking and equities and a high level of activity through out the whole quarter.

I would even highlight more the strengthened position across asset management and investment banking where we have received many proof points on our strong and leading market positions, among them the fact of being the institution that participated in the highest number of IPOs in Europe in '25, as well as the highest amount that was raised in the market. Costs are up reflecting high activity seasonally in the quarter and also some one-offs that we have talked to, and we also chose to highlight the cost development for the year, believing that this is more representative of the underlying cost development.

If we pro forma look at the underlying cost development, it's 2.6% for the year, slightly less than the inflation level that we have seen in Norway of 3.1%, demonstrating that we work systematically towards delivering on the cost ambitions outlined in the Capital Markets Day. Strong capital generation in the fourth quarter, strong earnings per share up from third quarter, contributing to the basis on which our board intend to recommend a cash dividend per share of 18 kroner per share for the year 2025.

We also announced today an additional share buyback program, in aggregate taking this to 11.5% of our shares being bought back and accounted for in 2025. After deducting both the cash dividend and this last share buyback, our capital position is very strong, 17.9%, a 240 basis point headroom towards the expected and required level by the FSA.

A positive backdrop, a strong capital generation supporting our ability to continue to grow and a commitment to deliver on our dividend policy as we demonstrate again by lifting the nominal level of dividend from what was distributed in 2024. From there, we'll take your questions.

Thank you. Operator, we are ready for questions.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please.

First one on competition. Can you share your current observations on the competitive dynamics in Norway?

If you are seeing any meaningful changes compared with the last year? Lending spreads have come down this quarter.

At what level do you expect them to normalize? How are you responding to the competitive environment, and what initiatives can help you to offset the pressure on margins?

Maybe you can elaborate more broadly, are you following competitors' pricing actions, or do you see digital capabilities and service quality as the primary levers to retain customer flow?

Thank you for these questions. In general, on the competitive environment in Norway, we qualify that as strong.

I think we have seen, and we have said for some quarters, that capacity and appetite to grow is larger than that of the demand. Our focus on growth is always profitability, and that is why we're also pleased to say that even in this environment, we are able to deliver profitable growth across all sectors.

The strongest contributor in the quarter being Corporate Customers Norway and Large Corporates. On Large Corporates, we are of course also leveraging our platform to grow outside of Norway.

Half of the growth delivered in the quarter and for the year stems from our activities outside of Norway. Again, we often talk about this platform and our ability to leverage decisions, and this is typically a year where you see that being demonstrated.

We always advise you to look at the volume-weighted margins rather than individual spreads, in particular in periods where the key policy rates and prices are moving. There, for example, we see a decrease of 6 basis points in the fourth quarter.

This represents materially the full-quarter impact of the repricing implemented throughout the quarter. It does also represent, in part, mixed change, different growth between lending and deposits, and margin pressure related to the competition we have talked about.

We are, I would say, offsetting margins through continuous volume growth, leveraging our platform, our presence, our capability across Norway to grow also in times of strong competition. We would not match any price point.

There is no need to match any price point as long as we can grow profitably. We are working, as we've talked about, to reduce time to pay out on mortgages.

We have reduced the time for mortgage application and processes by 50% during '25. This is important to customers.

We have facilitated much easier registration of businesses for new companies and onboarding into the corporate customer segment and reduced the timing of this by 37%. Of course, we actively use our distribution, both digital and physical, in order to market and proactively seek growth.

This will be our strategy going forward. We do not guide in on margins as such.

I did mention that we do expect to see another cut in the key policy rate towards the summer, and this is likely to believe to have an effect if banks continue to also change prices when key policy rates are priced. We're confident in our ability over time deliver growth, and we reiterate the ambition to grow 3% to 4% for the group.

It's not a max. We did grow by 4.9% in '25, and as long as growth is profitable, there is some flex to this, but the main plan and sort of ambition is the 3% to 4% rhythm, I would say, on the back of the platforms that we command.

Thank you. Very clear.

Just, second question, the other impacts on NII. How should we think about this item going forward, and what are the key underlying drivers for other NII?

Should we assume that this benefit is non-recurring?

It's a harder element to give you sort of guiding on in relation to other elements related to volume and margins because other NII tends to be more volatile from quarter to quarter. It's a bucket consisting of many different elements.

If you look at the previous quarters, you will have seen a negative delta from quarter to quarter. This quarter, we are in a situation where all of these major elements, they come into positive territory.

Key among the categories that are represented in other NII is interest-bearing activity that is not directly linked to lending and deposits, one of the examples being securities finance, another being short-term management of liquidity. It is also a bucket where elements that stems from intercompany elimination in the accounting will be visible, and it also bears elements of non-performing portfolio that can impact the numbers from quarter to quarter.

There's no real sort of ground rule for indicating the direction or which level it should be at. If you do, however, look at this over a longer period of time, I think you would see that more often than not, there is a stronger contribution in the fourth quarter than in other quarters.

Thank you very much. Very clear.

Yeah. Thanks.

Here is Sofie from Goldman Sachs. Just on the fee, the investment banking fees were very impressive, up 100%, over 100% year-on-year, and over 60% quarter-on-quarter.

How should we think about the sustainability of this fee line? Is it fair to assume that it could be kind of a normalized Q4 level, or should we expect kind of the level we saw this quarter to be a normalized level?

Then my second question would be on the Polish mortgage provisions. Could you please just remind us what the outstanding exposure is, if there were any additional provisions this quarter for that book, and how much the total provisioning or coverage is?

Thank you.

Should I start, Kjerstin? Hi, Sofie.

It's Alex here. Referring to the investment banking fees and the growth that you mentioned in Q4, well, first of all, of course, a seasonally strong quarter for investment banking normally, and we saw that also this year.

I would say that the activity level was broad-based and, while we also had some large, significant transactions, it was broad-based enough to say that we expect that to be a sort of normalized level for a Q4.

Yes. When it comes to the Polish portfolio, this is 34 million NOK, which is much lower than last quarter, but this is what we see sufficient for the situation.

Currently, the size of the portfolio is 2.4 billion Norwegian kroner, where the composition is 89% in euro, 1% in Swiss francs, and 10% in zloty denominated.

Sorry, just a clarification. On the Polish portfolio, what was the original exposure of this book?

The max exposure back in time?

Yes.

I don't think we have that number, Sofie.

Okay.

I'm not sure why that would be relevant. What we're outlining now is the current exposure and how it's spread across currencies.

Okay. No, because some of the other European banks with Polish exposures are saying, if you look at the Polish banks, they have 100% coverage because they're saying that you basically also can get claims for loans that have already been repaid.

I was just curious what the size of this exposure at the peak was.

Okay. Yeah.

No, I think what we can say is that the aggregates that we have taken of our best estimate as to the representative level of impairments.

Okay.

thanks for taking my questions. A couple, if I may.

The first one is, if I remember correctly, and if I understood Kjerstin, you mentioned that in Q4, you somehow experienced some lower margin pressure if I got your comments right this morning. I was wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on what exactly that meant.

The other question I have is, if the loan book is supposed to grow kind of 4%, because this is more or less what you have delivered in 2025, this is a fairly elevated number, at least in Western European countries, that the pie is large enough for everyone to have a profitable growth without punching pressure. 4%, it's fairly high for Western European standards.

I was wondering whether that comment to you makes sense or not. Then, sorry to get back to what Sofie just asked on Poland, but it's not clear to me if you actually charged some provision in this quarter related to the Polish portfolio and in case how much that was.

Thank you.

Thank you, Riccardo. We charged another 34 million portfolio this quarter.

You are correct. I did mention an observation that we had seen somewhat lower margin pressure in Q4 than Q3.

I would qualify this as a comment related to the fact that we are not seeing spiraling and rapidly increasing, rather than indicating what we expect to see in the future. My reference was also pointing to the fact that it's not a matter of just thinking about growth versus pricing.

I'm quite happy to see the work that Maria and her team is doing in order to leverage our position, our products, our channels, both in terms of physical distribution and digital, in order to generate new customers and cross-sell across the services and products we are offering. 3% to 4% growth has been sort of our marching rhythm, to say.

Some years slightly above, some years slightly below. It speaks to our growth platform more than to the pace of economic activity in Western Europe, and you know that we have more of a challenger position in other Nordic countries than Norway, which means that we are not as dependent on the growth in the economy overall, and we feel that our offering and capabilities towards clients is much improved with regarding Carnegie across investment banking, as well as wealth management.

This is well-received by our customers. Beyond that, we continue to have a very strong brand and offering across energy, across the maritime sector, across health care, and these are all industries that are driven by some of the mega trends that we see evolving.

This is the reason why we think we can detach a little bit and deliver profitable growth. If this means that everyone can deliver profitable growth, I'll leave it up to others to judge.

I think we have highlighted, as we believe it's a fact, that our growth platforms is a competitive advantage that gives us room and flexibility that others may or may not have.

Okay. Still, 3% to 4%, it would be, at least for Norway, less than the nominal GDP.

Why should that be the case? Because the inflation is 3, real GDP growth expected to be 1.5%, is one of your slides, if I'm not mistaken, lands in 4.5%.

Why the largest bank in a country should be growing less than the nominal GDP?

I think you can also look at the factor of development of house prices and refinancing activity that fluctuates, and I think you can go back and look at the historic development. It has not been very representative to just combine GDP as inflation.

There are other factors that are impacting it. You need to look at credit demand, for one.

This has come down. Credit demand, for example, among corporate customers Norway's in the SME sector, grew by 2.9% year, and we are growing more or less exactly in that rhythm.

If home constructions, as an example, does pick up, we don't expect it to materialize in '26, maybe towards the end and into '27. We wouldn't expect it to materially impact the GDP growth, but we would expect it to impact our growth numbers.

It's a little bit different than just combining the inflation and GDP. Again, you have the international platform and the rapid turnover we have in the portfolio, meaning that if you took the gross amount of underwriting, if we were only looking to add volume, we could add much more.

We are very focused on profitability, and the larger the clients, the larger the holdings, we will also look to syndicate, originate, and distribute. The gross level of business that we're doing, which involves also a lot of refinancing existing commitments, is, again, much higher than the GDP growth.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Two questions. First on Carnegie, what would be the area you've found greater success than you had expected in your plan, and conversely, other areas where challenged?

Second, just to understand, when we look at this other effect and thinking about 2020, 2026, and I guess Q1, do you think it makes more sense to stick at Q3 as a base level or is Q4 kind of a better starting point? If you could elaborate on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jacob. I'll hand it over to Alex to answer Carnegie.

On the other NII, I'm afraid I won't be able to give you much assistance. You will see that it is a line that fluctuates.

I would just reiterate that, not having gone back and looked at this quarter, but over time, if you look at several years, it tends to be a lower contribution in first quarter than the fourth quarter, typically because of more elements settling also towards the end of the year. You need to keep in mind, there is also a non-recurring element in the fourth quarter number of NOK 171 million.

Yeah.

Hi, Jacob. It's Alex here.

Your first question, what sort of the areas have we had greater successes than we maybe at the outset? I'd say we went into this believing really that the two businesses were a great fit in terms of footprint, but all integration is time-consuming, and maybe start by highlighting that we are all only really two full quarters in combined operations in.

If we go back to May of last year, really the focus point has been to bring the organizations together and bring our combined products to our clients and really secure that market position. I think if I were to summarize then both Q4 and '25 in that context, we have made very good progress on market position.

The areas that are most affected in a sense by change is in equities and in investment banking. In equities, very, very clear market leader in the Nordic region, and we do see that the scale benefits that we are achieving will result in more efficient and more attractive offer to our clients.

I think at the moment, we are ranked number one in three of the four Nordic countries in. In ECM, we really see that the individual organizations really complement, as mentioned before, from DNB's a DNA in DCM that Carnegie didn't have, and Carnegie had a strong DNA in ECM that we've, for instance, benefited from in the fourth quarter where Sweden was an active IPO market.

Altogether, we are, I think, very, very happy in where we've gotten and the client feedback that we are receiving. Then highlight that it's still early days, and we believe the better opportunities are ahead of us.

Maybe following up on that, Harald, the work together with LCI has been progressing well this year, but I really feel that that's accelerating at the moment. In terms of challenges, I think it is a significant amount of work to bring two organizations together, and that process is very much ongoing, but I think we're making good progress.

Okay. Thank you so much.

open. Please go ahead.

Hello. Thanks for taking my two couple of follow-ups, if I may.

The first one is on something that I always ask you, and I always forget the answer, is on the Fremtind. The Solvency II ratio is again 260, around 260%.

It was supposed to come down, but it always remains at 260. I was wondering, what is the level that you target over the medium term, not 10 years?

Is it supposed to be upstreamed in a faster way, the capital that is generated in insurance operations? The second question is on SRTs.

Just an idea if you have been active, what you have done, if it is an instrument you are actually using at the moment, you have been using in the past, just a little bit of color. Then maybe just a curiosity, given the 171 million NOK one-off in NII, I was wondering what this refers to, just a curiosity.

Thank you, Riccardo. I will hand the SRT question over to Rasmus, but I'll briefly respond to the Fremtind-Liv.

We haven't specified a target specifically for solvency. We have said that if solvency ratio is above 140%, we will distribute up to 100% of the annual result as dividend.

We are very pleased that Fremtind-Liv has managed to quite substantial volatility in the solvency ratio towards rate changes, it's vastly more robust than it was. We had a strong result here from Liv, pretax profit of 1.1 billion for the fourth quarter, and of course, a solvency of 266%, and we will upstream 100, we are likely to upstream 100% of the results in dividend.

In addition to that, you know that we are in a process where we are gradually moving capital up to the parent, which strengthens our core equity tier 1 ratio and our ability again to pay dividend to our, and that amount, I think it was for the third time that we did this, the fourth quarter last year, now 1.5 billion. You are asking the question, could we do this faster?

We told you on the Capital Markets Days that we look to upstream 10 billion,

30 billion

in the coming 10-year period. I think that still stands firm.

This is a process where we need approval from the FSA when we pay more than 100% of the result, and we want really to do this sustainably in a gradual manner that enables us to continue, but I think you're clearly seeing our intention, and that is to reduce excess capital, and we are now in a situation where the guaranteed portfolio is gradually diminishing. 171, non-recurring because you can't expect to see it every quarter.

It's still real revenue, but it should have been spread out differently across the year, I can tell you, but it's related to real interest income, but you shouldn't expect to see the same kind of this

quarters.

For Fremtind. Sorry.

Yep,

in terms of significant risk transfer, we have done one large securitization within the transport area, green transport, in the past, and we are looking at further potential in securitization in important areas of the bank going forward. In addition to that, and as mentioned during this morning's presentation, we use insurance actively to strengthen our originate and distribute on the large corporate side, which this year also became visible on our risk transfer and banking fees area.

In terms of SRTs, both on the securitization and on the insurance side.

Rasmus, you think there will be more room to reduce capital absorption on the back of this, or you think you are doing what you can do?

We believe there is more potential within securitization, and we are further pursuing that.

Right. Very clear.

Thank you.

Hi, and thank you very much for taking my questions. Two from me.

The first is, the 200 million non-recurring costs that you saw in the quarter, could you be a little bit more specific about what these relate to, is it sort of variable or something else? The second one is, could you provide a bit more color on the growth, particularly in Corporate Customers Norway, specifically what's sort of underlying and what might be shorter-term, for example, bridging facilities, something like that, would be very much appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'll do the corporate, and I'll hand the question on costs to Rasmus.

If we look at the growth for the year, because I think that makes more sense, the growth in Corporate Customers Norway was 5.2%. Important to highlight that commercial real estate is also part of Corporate Customers Norway, as our regional business with SMEs, and of course they differ when it comes to pattern and growth.

I think what is important for us with SMEs is to continue to see profitable growth. For the year, we see a credit growth demand of 2.9%, and our growth is 2.8% in the SME area throughout the year, and we're pleased also to see that a higher number of customers are choosing us as their bank, and we have a material uptick in terms of new customers selecting DNB.

This also means that the larger part of the growth, or approximately half of the growth, come in commercial real estate. Several large transactions was closed in the fourth quarter.

These are transactions that were composed of underwriting elements with a view to syndicate, and for the major part, these syndications have already been completed after New Year's, that is towards the end of this year. This is normal for commercial real estate, I'm not sure I would qualify it as recurring or non-recurring.

We have an attractive book of commercial real estate where we turn the capital around more rapidly than you typically see in an SME book. Of course, what this means is that the tailwind that you can see from the quite material growth that came in towards the end of the quarter is not necessarily sort of lasting through the first quarter, as we are distributing material amounts into the market.

Very good. In terms of the one-off effects on costs, as 200 million, as you pointed to, 50 million of those are attributed to the integration cost of DNB Carnegie.

There's also year-end effects relating to variable salaries that have been sort of accumulating throughout the year and then ending up in the last quarter, and other operational expenses.

Understood. Thank you.

Thanks.

Yes. Hello.

Good afternoon. A question to the buyback program.

Pointing to the fact that you buy back 2.5% including the today's announced program. How realistic is it to sort of manage to execute about 2%, 2.5% per year on this program from total share technical point of view?

I think what we can see now is that we are looking to deliver on this 2.5%. In terms of going forward, this depends on the total volumes and many variables, it's hard to describe in the future years where it is.

For 2025, this is what we are able to deliver.

I think we can add that we've said all along, what asks the general assembly of share buybacks, it's indication for the year. I think we've also been we do gradual buybacks volume transacted in the market, not as to interfere with the development of the share.

At some point, there is a practical limit, and as we are now smaller pieces where we need the approval from the FSA. FSA has been quite efficient in approving what we have required for in '25.

We think that if everything is aligned, there's probably a potential to do some more, but we are not guiding specifically on this. Again, I reiterate that the magnitude of share buybacks in '25, alongside the dividend of 18 per share, takes our distribution well above 86% of the annual result.

Okay. Thank you for that.

Okay. Thanks again.

That must be my lucky day. Sorry about that.

Sorry to pester you again on Fremtind-Liv, but the solvency capital remains 33, 32, 34 billion always. I'm just wondering, as the capital upstreaming started, this 30 billion of what?

Because the number is always the same. And 30 billion, and what do you need eventually, it's not clear what you need.

30 billion out of 1.2 trillion RWA is more than 2%. It's a big number.

Yes, it's a big number and hence a great potential to support the dividend capability of the group over time. Again, as long as it's above 140%, we will repay the results.

We will ask the FSA to reallocate surplus capital back to shareholders. This is a new situation to be in, and we're that in a sustainable, systematic the longer term, rather than any given.

The solvency year-on-year, this is something that will with the exposure under the insurance contracts, with the expected returns on the contracts in the future, it's more than just sort of taking the capital of last year, adding the result, and deducting the extraordinary dividend, if you will. Has been a situation where the performance of Liv has improved.

We also mentioned that we have a very I would call it, soft in our risk results and financial results this quarter, which plays into the financial instrument line in the P&L. This of course is something that to work on, but the focus is to be able to do this gradually, sustainably, but capital and excess paid out over time.

Sorry, Kjerstin. The number is always the same.

It's always 33 billion. Or this has started, or the number is larger than 30 billion, because it's

464%. Riccardo, I'm telling you that there are more elements that goes into calculation than the results and the capital reallocation.

It depends on the interest rate level, it depends on the exposure under the insurance contracts, it depends on the future of return, and these are only a few elements. I'm sure we can provide you with details as to how solvency is calculated, and we will do that following this

call. Okay.

Fair enough.

All right. Thank you so much for your participation, and we would like to wish you all a good day.

Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call.

You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.