Thank you, Calani, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Bank of Ireland's quarter one analyst call. I'm joined by CFO Mark Spain.

Quarter one marks the opening of the group's new three-year strategic cycle, and we've made a strong start. Our performance reflects disciplined execution of our new strategy, the breadth of our franchise, and the continued resilience of the Irish economy.

We've entered 2026 with momentum. Loans grew 5% annualized in quarter one, our Irish franchise grew 8%.

Deposits were strong at €107 billion, and our wealth and insurance franchise delivered €1.1 billion of net inflows. Asset quality remains robust, and the business continues to be highly capital generative.

The Irish economy continues to demonstrate growth and resilience against an uncertain external backdrop. Whilst the group's updated economic forecast points to some changes in headline GDP, our expectations regarding domestic growth rates, employment, and house prices are broadly unchanged versus the start of the year.

We remain vigilant should the current geopolitical backdrop persist, mindful of the potential long-term impacts for our customers. Looking ahead, our strategic priorities: driving growth in Ireland, optimizing capital allocation, and investing for the future, are designed to deliver disciplined top-line growth, a step change in operating leverage, and accelerating returns.

Strong balance sheets across households, corporates, and the state underpin our confidence in asset quality and volume growth. On net interest income, while there is potential upside from higher rate expectations, we retain our guidance at this early stage of the year.

As we conclude quarter one, the group reaffirms all of its 2026 guidance and financial targets out to 2028, including statutory return on tangible equity building to above 16% and mid- to high-teens annual EPS growth. I'm going to hand back now to Calani and open the floor to questions.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Thank you.

Good morning, Myles. Good morning, Mark.

Two questions if I may. Firstly, maybe, Mark, just on NII, I wonder if you could just maybe give us a little bit more detail around the areas you talk to in the statement around the pluses and minuses and how we should think about maybe those going through the next couple of quarters and into year-end and beyond.

Then maybe secondly, Myles, maybe just on wealth and insurance. Obviously, we have a little bit more detail now around the savings product that the state is likely to launch.

I just wonder, against the backdrop of the wealth strategy that was unveiled recently, how you think about how that plays into the broader strategy that you're looking to. Thank you.

Yeah.

Good morning, Diarmaid, and thanks for the questions. Let me take the wealth question first of all, and then I'll ask Mark to cover the moving parts on NII.

We are very supportive of the government's initiatives to introduce an ISA-type product, and of course, this is against the backdrop across Europe of a Savings and Investment Union. In our wealth strategy, we expect our wealth assets under management to grow to €75 billion out to 2028.

They've grown in the first quarter, net inflows very strong against a volatile market backdrop of €1.1 billion. Of course, part of that strategy of growing to €75 billion, and indeed, €100 billion by 2030, is developing further our affluent business model.

Therefore, it is in that space that a potential ISA product that the government are working on, that fits very firmly within our strategy of developing our affluent business. We're very supportive of it.

Morning, Diarmaid. On NII, and so Q1 performance very much in line with our expectations.

We are reiterating our guidance of around €3.4 billion for 2026. Very, very, very confident in that.

If we look forward to '27, '28, we provided an outlook at our full-year results on those, NII growing to greater than €3.6 billion by 2027 and to greater than €3.85 billion by 2028. Very much on track.

The key drivers over the out-years, but also playing out in Q1, loan and deposit growth, obviously very strong performance, particularly in our Irish loan books in Q1, really pleased with that. Also, the benefits of the structural hedge.

In Q1, Diarmaid, we would have also had the offset of lower interest rates and the FX impacts and also the impact of deleveraging portfolios. They've played out, that has left us flat versus Q1 last year.

I'd say overall, performance in Q1 gives us that very strong confidence in our guidance for the year of around €3.4 billion. Thanks very much.

Great, thanks very much.

Good morning, thank you for taking the questions. I wanted to ask about competitive trends.

You've raised term deposit rates a couple of weeks ago. What's prompted that?

Were you losing some business to competition at prior rates, and what has been the customer response to that increase? Also on the mortgage side, where the rate comparison suggests you're priced above peers, but still maintaining a high market share, how do you think BAWAG's entry changes that?

Thank you.

Good morning, Sanjena. Thank you for the question on competition.

I guess at the broadest level, when we communicated our strategy on the 2nd of March out to 2028, I spoke about a couple of things. One, firstly, that in setting out our targets out to '28 in terms of loan book growth, in terms of deposit book growth, we have factored in that in a growing market, that some of that growth could go to an elevated level of competition.

In that context, we remain very comfortable with all of the targets that we've set out. In terms of competitive activity on the ground, obviously, we note the significant transactions, but actually very little new activity relative to 2025 we've seen in the quarter.

The move on our deposit was scheduled and planned, and again, we see a very stable overall deposit base for everyday banking, and in fact, very small and marginal flow into term markets for Q1. On the mortgage space, again, I spoke earlier about the overall lending book for Bank of Ireland grew by 5%, the Irish book grew by 8%, and within that, of course, is a strong mortgage performance, market share to 41%.

That's a very good performance. Actually, looking at some of the expected completions of housing for quarter one, that points to a growing mortgage market that we expect over the course of this year.

Again, very confident around our ability to grow our balance sheet and having factored, we think, the likely impact of increased competition.

Thank you, Sanjena.

Morning, both. I hope this doesn't cross over the previous person's question, because I got cut off when I switched as a participant.

Just one question on the deposits. Obviously deposits were slightly down over the quarter.

They were flat for retail and there was a slight contraction in corporate deposits. I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more to the reasons there, given the system growth.

Then on NII, it looks like NII on an annualized basis is pretty much bang in line with guidance, but you've got lending growth coming through, expecting deposit growth, and the hedge to churn through, I just wondered if you could talk to whether there were any headwinds which are the reason you haven't sort of said ahead of the guidance, or whether you're seeing anything coming through which might act to cancel that, please.

Thanks very much, Mike. Mark, do you want to...

Hi,

Mike. Good morning.

Deposits in Q1, very much in line with our expectations, and actually typical seasonal trends there. If you look actually over the last couple of years, you'll see deposits flat in Q1, growth over Q2 to Q4.

It varies around a bit, even if we look at April, Mike, I would say trends playing out in April very much as we expect. We're feeling good about the year on deposits.

On NII, yeah, as I said in answer to Diarmaid's question earlier, we're really, really pleased with Q1 and very strong volume trends. As Myles mentioned, our Irish book growing by 8% on an annualized basis in Q1.

Strong performance both in mortgages and in our business and corporate lines as well. That really gives us that really strong confidence in the €3.4 billion for the year.

As Myles mentioned in his opening remarks, there's upside potential from higher rates, we're not reflecting that at this stage. It's just too early.

We'll come back to that at the interims. At the interims also, Mike, I think we'll just reflect overall on business performance in H1 on the outlook and bring it all back together.

Feeling really, really confident about that circa €3.4 billion for this year.

Thanks, Mike.

Good morning, Myles, and morning, Mark, and thank you for doing the call and for taking my questions. Just two, please, if I may.

One, you recorded good growth in your core corporate and commercial book in the quarter, just wondering if you can give us a sense of the type of new lending that you're seeing there and how sustainable you think that might be. Then secondly, just more generally, are you seeing any impact yet to your customers in relation to the higher energy and fuel costs, and any comments around that and asset quality more generally, please?

Thank you.

Good morning, Denis, and thank you for those questions. The corporate and commercial business, particularly in the Irish franchise, had a very strong quarter one.

I referenced the Irish lending book growing by 8%, and corporate and commercial were a very strong contributor to that performance. We're pleased, and you'll see it in the numbers that are set out in the IMS.

Again, it's the sectors that we have seen very good progress on last year continues to play out. Agri has been good, manufacturing, and retail as well.

Also, professional services areas, well, has been another source of good business for Bank of Ireland. On the energy piece, certainly we haven't seen any real materially impacts in quarter one.

Of course, this has a longer tail to play out, and that's why points around remaining very vigilant to this. We enter this, I guess, elevated period of uncertainty from a very strong position.

Our overall NPE ratio at 2%, asset quality across the book particularly strong, no areas of vulnerability that I'm seeing over the quarter. Also mindful, of course, Mark, on the impairment charge, we took a PMA at the end of last year of €40 million to get ahead of the geopolitical risk.

The other is an interesting data point, Dennis, is that if you look at energy intensity or energy consumption in Ireland relative to European peers, as a measure against either GDP or modified GDP, we're relatively low, and that's a function of the energy makeup in Ireland. Certainly, it is an area for careful attention, and we're working closely with our customers as they navigate this period of uncertainty as well.

Far, very strong quarter and feel comfortable about the overall guidance for the full year.

Thank you.

Thanks, Denis.

Hi, guys. Thank you.

Sorry, two questions, please, again. Sorry, at the time of your strategic plan, can you just remind us of what the reinvestment rate you assumed in your hedge just for the rolling maturities?

Because obviously, we've had a reasonable movement in rates in the most recent period, obviously, I presume that's quite significant upside as we look forward. Secondly, I know it's only a quarter, but RWAs reported were up 600 million, I think, whereas loans were up one and a half Oh, sorry, 1.1 billion.

Kind of an incremental RWA intensity of around 55%. I know you had guided around 25% at the time of your strategic plan.

Was that something going on in the quarter, or is it just how should we think about that as we look forward? Thank you.

Thanks. Mark, do you want to...

Hi, Seamus. On the RWA, so, firstly, FX will be in that as well, just to think about the so sterling and the dollar were both slightly stronger versus the end of the year.

Then if you look at the breakdown of our lending, you've got about half in corporate, where you've a higher risk weight, half in mortgages. Just the metric I think you're thinking about is that 25% organic capital generation invested in RWA, okay?

That's the metric. That is actually that we see that playing out actually in this quarter, and we see that playing out over the years as well.

On the structural hedge, Seamus, you're right. You talk about the upside potential from higher rates.

Obviously, that would feed through in the context the hedge as the hedge rolls over. Reinvestment yields Q1 right across, sterling and euro in the sort of 270 sort of range.

Sort of building to that level is what we assumed in the plan. There's potential upside on that as we go forward if rates markets remain where they are.

Morning, guys, and thanks for the questions. I had two on net interest income if I may.

The first one, I saw you added a further €3.4 billion of volume into the bond portfolio. Just interested how much more capacity is there to go further on that?

Are you still anticipating a further 50 basis point margin uplift on those investments? Then the second question, just wanted to know if we could have a bit of an update on the portfolio wind-downs.

Where are we on the books being deleveraged? What sort of time frame could we expect for full exits, and how much net interest income headwinds remain from those exits?

I suppose they would be my two questions. Thank you.

Thanks, Jordan. Mark, do you want to...

Hi, Jordan. Bond portfolio, we've added 3.5 in Q1.

I'd say that's the bulk of our activity for the year in that, Jordan. We'll obviously continue to keep that under review.

Spreads on that about 40 basis points. In terms of the wind-down portfolios, again, we've given the disclosure in the IMS on that, but I would say the three portfolios there are Corporate GB, US Leveraged, and US CRE books.

Again, all have reduced in Q1. Pleased with some NPE exits there as well, supporting the NPE ratio dropping to 2%.

In total over the three years, about €110 million or so of NII headwinds between '26 and '28, and a lot of that this year, about €60, €70 million of that this year.

Thank you.

Hi, gents. Thanks very much for the presentation and the opportunity to ask questions.

Just two. On the mortgage market share, please, the 41% share of gross lending in Q1, it's pretty consistent with the kind of 42% level that you delivered in prior periods, but you kind of pointed us to some kind of market share below that going forward.

I was interested, is there any chance you can give us kind of spot market share quarter-to-date, how you've been developing, and your expectations on how that might develop through the course of the year? That'd be really helpful.

Then secondly, just on the ECLs, obviously, credit's fairly benign in the quarter, but you're deferring the update to macroeconomic assumptions to H1, which I understand. I was interested, Mark, how you're approaching that exercise more broadly, to be honest with you, given the Middle East.

The sense is that actually Ireland's quite a resilient backdrop, right, and you've kind of alluded to that. You might actually expect a relatively modest impact on ECLs from any exercise that's coming in H1, but be keen to kind of, yeah, get your sense of how you're thinking about that, please.

Morning, Aman. Let me take the mortgage market share question and the outlook for that, and Mark, on the second question.

Firstly, you've heard me say it before, we don't have a mortgage market share target. It's not the right thing for us to do.

Certainly, we've had a very strong quarter one performance, and again, an average drawdown share of 41%. It's been broadly consistent over the three months that they've been just bobbing above the 40% level.

I think my point on this one is that, firstly, our outlook for the year remains very strong for this business. This is a book that grew 9% last year.

I referenced earlier in quarter one, our overall Irish book grew by 8%, and the mortgage book was a very important, clearly, component of that. I guess the headline point really is that that market share is elevated, but it doesn't need to be that high for us to ensure that we continue to grow our mortgage book over the course of the year, and indeed, out to '28, and in support of those targets to grow our book by an average about 4% for the total group through year out to 2028.

My point here, Aman, is simply that the biggest source of value for our mortgage business is the fact that the mortgage market, the system mortgages, are growing year on year, heavily supported by the supply of new homes. In fact, most recent data that's come out points to a significant increase in housing outputs this year, possibly above 40,000, and that's very significant.

Yes, the market share of front book is relevant, of course it is, but in terms of the total book, that that system growth is really important, and we're very got a very positive view on that, and indeed, that book growing strongly over the course of '26 and beyond.

Morning, Aman. Just on the ECLs, and maybe just a couple of data points.

We will go through that exercise as we approach the half year. As Myles mentioned, firstly, I think we've got ahead of this a little bit in the sense of taking the geopolitical PMA of €40 million at the end of last year.

That certainly provides some protection as part of an overall PMA stock of over €100 million. I think the second thing is we published our own updated economic forecasts a couple of days ago.

If you just look at our forecasts for domestic growth in the Irish economy, they're basically the same as our central case back in December. Obviously we need to see where we are in June, but I think that's just sort of the data points that's relevant.

Then the third point is if you look at the weightings in our ECL modeling, you'll see we've got 30% dented to the downside. Again, I'd say some protection there.

Obviously, we need to go through the exercise, but certainly there are some I'd say hopefully helpful data points as we think about it.

Thank you so much, guys.

Thanks, Aman.

Hello. Good morning.

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

I apologize if this has been answered beforehand, I got disconnected. My first question would be if I look at NII outlook, I do see some positive upside both to consensus, but also to your prior guidance of NII.

I see NII around 2% to 3% higher than current consensus for next few years, I would like to ask if you could kindly provide some color. Then my second question would be some competitors have been increasing the hedge of the structural hedge notional.

I would like to ask if this could be a possibility for Bank of Ireland to further benefit from the current higher rate environment? Thank you.

Morning, Borja. In my opening remarks, I made the point that on net interest income, there is potential upside from higher rate expectations.

I guess at this early part in the year, at the end of quarter one, we are retaining our guidance. There certainly is upside.

Mark, you'll take Borja through some of the moving parts.

Absolutely, Borja. I think just going back to the 2nd of March, that NII trajectory building to greater than €3.6 billion in 2027, greater than €3.85 billion by 2028, and that was based on an ECB rate assumption of 2% this year and getting to 2%, 2.25% in 2028.

In terms of BOE, similarly rate expectations have increased there or higher now than they were. We are early in the year, Borja, we're also, to an answer to an earlier question, we're also very pleased with Q1 performance in terms of, let's say, what's going on on the ground, the business from a volume perspective.

We will sort of bring all that back together at the interim results. We'll have a couple of rate-setter meetings at that point as well.

Hopefully, a little bit more visibility and provide an update on where we're at. As I said, really high conviction in our circa €3.4 billion guidance for 2026 set.

Just to answer on the second question, yeah, the structural hedge we see growing modestly over the next three years, Borja, basically in line with our deposits and our equity. Those are the key drivers of that.

Around the edges of that, we'll always look and examine, particularly our deposit base, and see if there's opportunities for taking further action, but nothing to report on that today. I think we gave quite a bit of disclosure on the structural hedge outlook back on the 2nd of March, and I think that remains intact today.

Thanks, Borja.

Thank you.

Hi, guys, and thanks for taking my question. Just a follow-up on the housing market.

I know you said that you see increase in completions to the end of the year and that might expect to drive acceleration in the Irish retail lending. Just a quick question.

Do you normally sort of see some seasonality in this and expect the first quarter to be a bit slower usually? Then also, it looks like your interest rate sensitivity has decreased slightly versus the full year.

Could you maybe talk through what the moving parts might be on that?

Good morning, Fatima, and thanks for the questions. On the housing supply, firstly, the overall message is that we expect that the housing outputs for 2026 to be higher than 2025.

That's super important in the context of supporting a growing mortgage book. I'd say it's less about seasonality factors and more about the lead time when developers commence projects.

For example, a housing development can take in the region of 12 months from start to finish. If you think about an apartment build, which is a huge part of the solution of solving the housing challenge in Ireland and again, supporting our mortgage business, that can take up to two years.

The data that we watch as well as the completions in a particular point in time, and again, quarter one completions year on year are very strong, again indicating housing output could break through 40,000 for the full year, the data we look at typically is around when developers start their work on the ground. Again, that data is also very supportive of a higher level of housing output and therefore, supporting growth in the mortgage book this year.

Myles, just one add on that. Fatima was going to the seasonality in the mortgage business as well.

Fatima, from a mortgage business perspective, Q4 will typically be the strongest quarter,

just on that.

On the NII sensitivity, Fatima, look, there's no change. I think we've just given in the statements the sensitivity, 25 bps on euro, but obviously the NII disclosure we've given overall is across all currencies.

I think if you just look at the euro column back in the slide at the end of the year, you'll see that the numbers are the same.

Hi, guys. A question on the retail UK lending business, please.

The trends were flat, we've seen a lot of UK peers and the mortgage market in the UK grow a fair amount in the first quarter. I'm wondering what's going on underneath the hood there, because clearly UK is in let's say a more challenging situation compared to Ireland.

Is there a case of maybe capital allocation being favored in Ireland as opposed to the UK? Are the margins and the returns of these mortgages that you're lending out are they maybe not as attractive at this moment in time?

Keen to hear what's there. Thanks.

Morning, Kian. The performance of the UK business in the quarter one was a strong performance and supportive of the overall group performance.

If I can take you back for a moment just to the strategy we communicated on the 2nd of March, I spoke about the most important pillars of that strategy was driving growth in the Irish franchise, and second of all, optimizing capital allocation. Those two objectives play very much into your question.

I'm very comfortable with the capital that we've allocated into our UK business. Certainly, there is an opportunity for that book to grow modestly over the next number of years.

We've seen some of that in quarter one when the UK book grew, it was supportive of the overall group growth of 5%. It's not a part of the business, certainly from an organic perspective, that we're putting significantly more capital into relative to what we will be doing on the island of Ireland for our franchise.

Again, nothing of note. The book has performed well, credit quality is in good shape, and performance aligned with expectations and indeed with our strategy.

Thanks for letting me ask questions again. I thought this time let me try to squeeze two more in.

So 1Q cost growth in line with full-year guidance, but wondering if you could provide some color on OpEx and restructuring within that. Are restructuring costs in the year progressing as expected?

Are they expected to be fairly linear or front-ended? Then maybe on the UK motor provision of around €430 million, unchanged, but is it now incorporating only one scenario, that is the FCA final redress scheme, or are there certain other considerations in that?

Thank you.

Thanks, Sanjena. Mark, do you want to cover that?

In reverse order, Sanjena, obviously we review the final FCA redress scheme, and there's no change in our provision of £374 sterling relative to where we were in March. We have aligned with the FCA expectations, for example, on opt-in rates, etc., on that.

Confidence actually now that actually should put that matter behind us. In terms of cost growth, again, Sanjena, very much in line with expectations.

Obviously, there's hard work on the ground to deliver that. We have obviously inflation, where we're making significant investment, we called that out as part of the strategy, including, for example, in our wealth business where we're making a really good progress in Q1, but offset that we're delivering savings as well.

They're playing out as expected in Q1. Our restructuring costs, yeah, I'd say broadly linear over the year.

They won't be exactly linear, but again, nothing to call out today in that regard. We're happy with the progress that we're making.

Thank you.

Thanks, Sanjena.

Thank you very much. I know it's a busy day in the market today, thank you for your time, and I hope you all have a very good Friday, and look forward to talking to you all in due course.

Thank you very much.