Barclays Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 1, 2024

There are 11 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to Barclays Half Year twenty twenty four Results Analyst and Investor Conference Call.

Operator

I will now hand you over to C. S. Venkatakrishnan, Chief Executive, before I hand over to Anna Cross, Group Finance Director.

Speaker 1

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Barclays' 2nd quarter 2024 results call. At our Investor Update in February, we set out a 3 year plan to deliver a better run, more strongly performing and higher returning Barclays. We are continuing to execute in a disciplined way against this plan and this is our second progress report. Our second quarter and first half performance keeps pace with our 2024 and 2026 financial targets, which are: 1st, grow returns with a target return on tangible equity of above 12% in 2026 2nd, distribute more capital to shareholders with a target of returning at least £10,000,000,000 between 20242026. And 3rd, rebalance the bank with a target to reduce RWAs in the investment bank from 58% of group RWAs at the end of 2023 to around 50% by 2026.

Speaker 1

Return on tangible equity was 9.9% in the 2nd quarter and 11.1% in the first half of the year, on track for our target of above 10% in 2024. Total income for the Q2 was £6,300,000,000 and it was £13,300,000,000 for the first half. And as you will hear from Anna, we continue to be focused on the quality and stability of our income mix.

Speaker 2

We are

Speaker 1

also increasing our net interest income guidance for 2024 from GBP 10,700,000,000 to approximately GBP 11,000,000,000 We continue to control our costs well and are seeing the benefit of the cost actions, which we took in the Q4 of last year. Our cost to income ratio was 63% in the second quarter and 62% in the first half. We continue to manage our credit carefully. Impairment charges have improved in the U. S.

Speaker 1

Consumer Bank in line with our expectations and our overall credit performance is strong, particularly in the UK. We remain well capitalized. Our CET1 ratio was 13.6%, comfortably within our 13% to 14% target range. This has enabled us to announce the 1st installment in our plan to return at least GBP 10,000,000,000 to shareholders by 2026. We have a total payout of GBP 1,200,000,000 for the first half of twenty twenty four, including a GBP 0.29 dividend per share and GBP 750,000,000 buyback.

Speaker 1

Across the bank and within each of our 5 divisions, we are striving for an improved operational and financial performance. You see on this slide, Slide 4, the returns on tangible equity for each of our divisions and for the group alongside our 2026 target. Anna will take you through our financial performance in more detail shortly after I've covered a few divisional highlights. Starting with our 3 UK focused divisions, Barclays UK, the UK Corporate Bank and Private Bank and Wealth Management. We said in February that we plan to deploy an additional £30,000,000,000 of RWAs into these higher returning UK businesses by 2026.

Speaker 1

Barclays UK's return on tangible equity was 22.3% for the quarter. We are seeing stability in the balance sheet with interest rates now expected to stay higher for longer. Deposits are stabilizing faster than we anticipated with savings broadly flat quarter on quarter, given the pricing actions which we took earlier in this year. And we saw positive growth lending across products as we manage the mortgage book well in a competitive environment. The announced acquisition of TESSCO's retail banking business is progressing well and we are on track for completion in November this year.

Speaker 1

This will represent around £8,000,000,000 of RWAs out of the £30,000,000,000 which we announced earlier. In the UK Corporate Bank, Matt Hammerstein presented our ambitions for this business in June, the first of our deep dives following the investor update. We have an opportunity to grow our share of lending in the UK corporate market through deepening our client relationships and investing more in the client experience in order to make it easier for them to access more of our products and services. We delivered 18 percent RoTE in the UK Corporate Bank in the Q2 and target continued high teens returns in this business in 2026. Private Banking and Work Management delivered an RoTE of 30.8% in the 2nd quarter as client assets and liabilities grew by 14% year on year.

Speaker 1

With simpler pricing and service improvements, we have seen a meaningful increase in new customers signing on to our Smart Investor Digital program over the first half of this year. In the Investment Bank, RoTE for the quarter was 9.6%. We remain committed to delivering improved RWA and operational productivity to drive higher returns for this business, and you can see evidence of progress. In markets, fixed performance was relatively stable with European rates improving year on year, while we continue to focus on expanding our overall market share. Securitized products continue to perform well.

Speaker 1

Investment Banking fee income was up 45% year on year as the industry wallet grew and we increased our share overall. ECM had a strong quarter driven by our lead role in helping a long standing corporate broking client, National Grid, raise GBP 7,000,000,000 in the landmark rights issue. The Co Head of Investment Banking, Kaho Desi and Taylor Wright, will present a deep dive on their business on the 1st October. Finally, the U. S.

Speaker 1

Consumer Bank delivered an improved RoTE of 9.2% for the quarter as we continue to grow and drive operational improvement and while impairment charges normalized. We took proactive actions to reduce credit lines last year and to build reserves early. And as a result, our impairment performance in the first half has played out as we expected. Overall, we remain execution focused. One area in particular is cost discipline.

Speaker 1

We achieved a further GBP 200,000,000 of gross cost savings this quarter, taking the total for the first half of the year to GBP 400,000,000 and this is on track for our targeted GBP 1,000,000,000 for the full year of 2024. We also made progress with the non strategic business disposals, which we talked about at our Investor Update. In this quarter, we completed the sale of our performing Italian mortgage portfolio and have announced the sale of our German consumer finance business. Finally, as I said, the GBP 1,200,000,000 shareholder distribution is the first installment of our greater than GBP 10,000,000,000 capital return plan. I will now hand over to Anna to take you through the Q2 financials in greater detail.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Venkat, and good morning, everyone. On Slide 6, we have laid out Barclays financial highlights for Q2 and H1, and you'll see the same throughout the presentation for each business. As before, I won't talk to these slides, but have included them for ease of reference. Turning to Slide 7. The headline message is that Q2 remains in line with the plan we laid out in February.

Speaker 3

We delivered a statutory ROTE of 9.9 percent despite a circa 50 basis point headwind year on year from the cash flow hedge reserve. Excluding the loss on sale from the business disposals that Venkat mentioned, Q2 ROTE was higher than last year at 11.8 percent. First half statutory ROATI was 11.1% and we continue to target above 10% in 2024 or around 10.5% on an underlying basis ex disposal. Just like Q1, I was looking for 4 things in these results. Number 1, income stability number 2, cost discipline and progress on efficiency savings number 3, credit performance and number 4, a robust capital position.

Speaker 3

Overall, we are where we expected to be, and I will cover these in more detail on subsequent slides. Starting with income on Slide 8. Total income was up 1% year on year at €6,300,000,000 and was impacted by the €240,000,000 loss from the disposal. Excluding this, income was up 4%. At our investor update in February, we emphasized the quality and stability of our income and how the more stable revenues that we generate from retail and corporate as well as financing in the Investment Bank provide ballast to our income profile.

Speaker 3

Together, these businesses contributed 73% of group income in Q2. Retail and corporate income included the loss on sale from disposals and the underlying business income was broadly flat. Financing income was also stable year on year at €800,000,000 despite the 2023 inflation linked tailwinds that we have called out previously. And we saw year on year growth in both As in Q1, NII, ex Investment Bank and Head Office was broadly stable in Q2 at circa €2,700,000,000 Structural hedge tailwinds continue to offset and we expect this to continue into the second half. We have also updated our UK rate expectations for 2024 and now assume one base rate cut to 5% by the end of the year.

Speaker 3

Together, these trends mean that we have increased our 2024 guidance for group NII, ex Investment Bank and Head Office to circa €11,000,000,000 for the full year, up from €10,700,000,000 Within this, NII guidance for Barclays UK increased from €6,100,000,000 to circa €6,300,000,000 excluding the Tesco Bank acquisition. A further UK rate cut to 4.75% towards the end of the year, which is currently assumed in the latest consensus, would not materially change NII this year. Moving on to the structural hedge on Slide 10. As a reminder, the structural hedge is designed to reduce volatility in NII and manage interest rate risk. As rates have risen, the hedge has dampened the growth in our NII.

Speaker 3

And in a falling rate environment, we will see the benefit from the protection that it gives us. The expected NII tailwind from the hedge is significant and predictable. €11,700,000,000 of aggregate gross income is now locked in over the 3 years to the end of 2026, up from €9,300,000,000 at Q1. We have around €170,000,000,000 of hedges maturing between €24,000,000,000 26,000,000 at an average yield of 1.5%. As we said in February, reinvesting around 3 quarters of this at around 3.5% would compound over the next 3 years to increase structural hedge income in 2026 by circa €2,000,000,000 versus 2023.

Speaker 3

In response to greater stability in customer and client deposit behavior, we have slightly increased the average duration. Given the high proportion of balances hedged and the programmatic approach we take, we are relatively insensitive to the short term impact of potential rate cuts. We have provided a sensitivity table to illustrate this in the appendix on Slide 35. Moving on to my second focus area, cost discipline. Total costs in Q2 were up 1% at €4,000,000,000 whilst operating costs were up 2% year on year.

Speaker 3

We delivered a further €200,000,000 of gross efficiency savings, bringing the total for H1 to €400,000,000 and we remain on track to deliver €1,000,000,000 for the full year. These efficiencies have helped us to offset inflation and created capacity for investments. Our cost to income ratio was 63% in Q2, 62% for half 1, and we still expect it to be around 63% for 2024. Turning now to my 3rd focus area, impairment, which continues to trend positively. The impairment charge of €384,000,000 equated to a loan loss rate of 38 basis points for the quarter, below our through the cycle guidance of 50 to 60.

Speaker 3

The Barclays UK charge was just 8,000,000 a loan loss rate of 1 basis point, which reflected continued benign credit conditions and an €18,000,000 release of economic uncertainty PMAs. Our U. K. Customers continue to act prudently with little current signs of stress evidenced by continued low and stable delinquencies. Starting from this low base, we expect the Barclays UK loan loss rate to track towards circa 35 basis points over time as we complete the Tesco Bank acquisition and grow the balance sheet as outlined in our investor update.

Speaker 3

In the U. S. Consumer Bank, the charge increased year on year to €309,000,000 and the loan loss rate to 4 38 basis points. On Slide 13, you can see the mix of reserve builds to write offs within the impairment charge for the U. S.

Speaker 3

Consumer Bank continue to evolve as we guided. We expected write offs to increase during 2024 and as such, took proactive actions to reduce credit lines and build reserves early. In line with industry trends, there was a fall in delinquencies in Q2 versus Q1, which in part was due to seasonality and higher customer repayments. From here, we would expect future quarters to follow normal seasonality, delinquencies rising towards the end of the year. We still expect the U.

Speaker 3

S. Consumer Bank impairment charge to improve in the second half compared to the first, resulting in a lower full year charge in 2024 versus 2023. And we continue to guide to a loan loss rate trending towards the long term average of 400 basis points. I will cover my 4th focus area, which is our capital position after I have walked you through our business performance. As I mentioned, you can see Barclays U.

Speaker 3

K. Financial highlights and targets on Slide 14, but I will talk to Slide 15. ROTEI was a strong 22.3 percent and total income was €1,900,000,000 Income was down €74,000,000 year on year, driven by deposit and mortgage product dynamics and the transfer of U. K. Wealth in Q2 2023.

Speaker 3

NII of €1,600,000,000 was up €48,000,000 on Q1. NIM increased by 13 basis points to 3.22 percent, reflecting increased NII, but also lower asset levels, which we do expect to grow over time. As you can see on the chart, continued structural hedge momentum more than offset product margin pressures. Looking to the second half of the year, we expect the positive behavior to continue to stabilize and churn impact in mortgages to be neutral to marginally positive. As I mentioned earlier, we are now targeting circa €6,300,000,000 of NII for Barclays UK in 2024, excluding Tesco Bank, which is now expected to complete at the beginning of November.

Speaker 3

At Q3 results, we will provide more details on the expected financial impact. Non NII was €290,000,000 in Q2, and we continue to expect a run rate above €250,000,000 per quarter going forward. Total costs were €1,000,000,000 down 4% year on year due to efficiency savings and the transfer of U. K. Wealth in Q2 last year.

Speaker 3

The cost to income ratio was 55%. Moving on to the Barclays U. K. Customer balance sheet on Slide 16. At Q1, we said we expected underlying deposit trends and loans to stabilize in the second half.

Speaker 3

Deposits have stabilized faster than we anticipated with balances reducing by only €500,000,000 in the quarter. Whilst net lending remains negative, gross activity has increased across portfolios reflecting our focus on growth. Gross mortgage lending was just under 20% higher than Q1. However, this was more than offset by a high level of maturities. Application volumes were strong with a more balanced high loan to value share as per our stated ambition.

Speaker 3

UK card balances were stable at circa €10,000,000,000 acquisition volumes were strong and we added 500,000 new Barclaycard accounts in half 1 in line with our UK growth plan. As we said previously, this will take time to flow into net balance sheet growth and interest earning lending. Business Banking gross lending also increased meaningfully, offset by paid owner of government backed loans. This shape is as we expected with a stabilization in net lending in the second half and then growth from there over the planned period. Moving on to the Corporate Bank on Slide 18.

Speaker 3

UK Corporate Bank delivered Q2 ROTE of 18%. Income was down 6% year on year at €443,000,000 as increased deposit income from higher interest rates was more than offset by lower liquidity pool income. Loans were flat quarter on quarter as demand from corporate clients remained muted as there was a seasonal pickup in deposit balances post Q1. As we said at the Corporate Bank deep dive in June, we expect to generate lending growth within this business. You can see the early signs of this, if not yet in balances, in circa €1,000,000,000 of RWA growth year to date, which reflects an increase in client facilities.

Speaker 3

Total costs increased by 10% year on year to €235,000,000 reflecting investment spend, which we expect to continue in support of our growth initiatives. Turning now to Private Banking and Wealth Management. ROCE was 30.8 percent, supported by strong growth in client assets and liabilities, up around €10,000,000,000 on Q1 and around €25,000,000,000 versus the prior year. The year on year increase in income was mostly attributable to the transfer of the U. K.

Speaker 3

Wealth business, which occurred in May last year. Underlying growth from higher balances and higher interest rates was offset by continued, although slowing deposit migration. Costs increased €37,000,000 year on year, mostly as a result of the transfer, but also due to ongoing investments in growing the business. We expect costs to be slightly higher in the second half versus the first from our investments to grow our platform, hiring and efficiency related measures. Turning now to the Investment Bank on Slide 22.

Speaker 3

Q2 ROTE was 9.6%. Total income of €3,000,000,000 was up 10% year on year, driven by growth in Investment Banking and Markets. Total costs were up 5%, delivering 5% positive cost to income jaws despite higher structural cost actions linked to headcount actions in the Q2. This resulted in a cost to income ratio of 63% for Q2, down 3 percentage points year on year. RWA productivity measured by income over average RWAs was 5.9%, 40 basis points better year on year, albeit down seasonally on the Q1 level.

Speaker 3

As we set out in the investor update, we are focused on improving this key metric from the 2023 level to drive higher Investment Bank return. RWAs were $3,000,000,000 or 1.4 percent higher versus Q1 at $203,000,000,000 This is within the bounds of normal client trading activity, driven largely by temporary factors. As you know, we are committed to keeping Investment Bank RWAs broadly stable at year end 2023 levels, reducing the proportion to circa 50% of the group by 2026. Now looking at the specific income lines in more detail on Slide 23. Using the U.

Speaker 3

S. Dollar figures as usual to help comparisons to our U. S. Peers, markets income was up 6% year on year. Equities income was up 24%, again reflecting good performance across equity derivatives, prime and cash.

Speaker 3

FIC income was down 2% against the prior year quarter that we said included a circa €100,000,000 benefit from inflation linked positions. Excluding this, FICC was up 6% and this is the last quarter in which you will see a material impact. We continue to make progress in our 3 focus businesses and markets. Equity Derivatives saw strong client activity and the market for securitized products remained favorable in Q2, allowing us to continue to monetize the investments we have made here. European rates improved, but we have more to do as we continue our focus on expanding share in this business.

Speaker 3

Financing income remained around €800,000,000 despite the positive inflation effect in the prior year, providing the more stable income stream to market that we have emphasized. This reflects strong growth in client balances, offsetting spread compression as we continue to scale the business and deliver on our €600,000,000 financing income growth target by 2026. Investment Banking fee income was up 45% year on year with gains across all products. Our year to date banking fee share was 3.6%. We have increased share across most products in a rising industry wallet, but we still have worked to sustainably improve this.

Speaker 3

GCM income was up 55%, again delivering improved performance across both investment grade and leveraged finance. ECM was up 76%, benefiting from the large transaction that Venkat mentioned and the market is showing encouraging signs of recovery. Advisory income increased 7% year on year and our pipeline of announced deals looks healthy for the rest of the year. Finally, in the International Corporate Bank, our U. S.

Speaker 3

And European deposit balances increased in the quarter, which we see as a lead indicator of future client product take up and fee income growth. These were offset by the impact of the changing rate and inflationary environment on deposits and liquidity pool returns year on year, taking income down by 5%. Turning now to the U. S. Consumer Bank on Slide 25.

Speaker 3

USCB generated ROTE of 9.2% as income growth was offset by higher impairment versus the prior year as we expected. Income grew 7% as card balances were up by $1,700,000,000 year on year to $31,200,000,000 From now on, we will report end net receivables on both a managed and a reported basis. Managed balances were €32,300,000,000 and include the receivables sold to Blackstone in Q1. As a reminder, in return, we are paid a fee and also continue to incur the cost of managing these balances. NIM reduced by 10.4% from 11.1 percent at Q1, driven largely by increased amortization of rewards paid to customers, which can be lumpy.

Speaker 3

We continue to target a NIM for this business of greater than 12% by 2026. The proportion of core deposits in our funding mix was 67% as we target above 75% by 2026. Efficiency savings as a result of last year's structural cost actions offset inflation, resulting in broadly flat costs and a cost to income ratio of 50%. Costs increased versus Q1 due to higher partner spend and are expected to trend up modestly in half 2 as we continue to grow our book. We now expect migration to internal rating space or IRB models to be in Q1 2025, reflecting a refined approval and implementation timetable.

Speaker 3

This is a timing impact only and does not affect our 2026 target. Turning now to head office on Slide 26. Head office income was down €207,000,000 year on year, mainly due to the loss on sale of our performing Italian mortgage book. This sale is expected to reduce group's statutory ROTE for 2024 by circa 45 basis points, but have a broadly neutral capital impact. The announced sale of our German consumer business is not expected to complete until later this year or early next, but has a negligible ROTE impact.

Speaker 3

Upon completion, we expect the transaction to reduce head office RWAs by circa 3 point £4,000,000,000 generating around 10 basis points of CET1 capital. Turning now to the balance sheet and starting with my 4th focus area, percent

Speaker 2

at

Speaker 3

percent at the end of Q2, comfortably within our target range, and we generated 35 basis points of capital from profits in the quarter. This supports our announced half year distribution of €1,200,000,000 comprising a 2.9p dividend and a GBP 750,000,000 buyback. We expect to begin the buyback soon, having completed the previous GBP 1,000,000,000 buyback earlier this week. The half one dividend in absolute terms is consistent with the prior year, but is 7.4p higher per share, driven by the share count reduction from the buyback. This year's total capital return is still expected to be broadly in line with the 2023 level of $3,000,000,000 consistent with the capital distribution plan we laid out in February.

Speaker 3

Risk weighted assets were €1,800,000,000 higher on Q1 at around €351,000,000,000 as you can see in more detail on Slide 28. Our guidance remains for regulatory driven RWA inflation to be at the lower end of 5% to 10% of December 2023 group RWAs. This includes both expected Basel 3.1 and U. S. Consumer Bank IRB impacts as we said in February.

Speaker 3

DNAR per share increased 5p in the quarter to 3.40p. Attributable profit added 8p and the reduced cash flow hedge reserve drag on shareholders' equity added 0.02p Additionally, share buybacks reduced our share count by 2% over the same period, driving TNAB accretion of 0.03p per share. This was partially offset by dividends paid and other reserve movements. Year on year, TNAV is up 49p or 17%. Before I conclude, as usual, a brief word on capital and liquidity on Slide 30.

Speaker 3

We continue to maintain a well capitalized and liquid balance sheet with diverse sources of funding and a significant excess of deposits over loans. In summary, we remain focused on disciplined execution. This is the 2nd quarter of progress against the targets we laid out in February, which we are reiterating today and we remain on track. Thank you for listening. Moving now to Q and A.

Speaker 3

As usual, please could you keep to a maximum of 2 questions, so we can get around to everyone in good time.

Operator

Our first question today comes from Alvaro Serrano from Morgan Stanley.

Speaker 4

One on costs, please. And in the roundtable, I think it was in May, you mentioned there would be structural costs in Q2. I haven't seen any of them called out. And it's been the Q2 now that you've done better than consensus. So just wondering what the underlying sort of run rate costs are and should we be reducing the costs for the full year?

Speaker 4

That's the first one. And obviously, UK and Investment Banking doing very well. I had a question on the revenue performance in U. S. Cards.

Speaker 4

CDNI is down. You reiterated that 12% margin during your comments. I just wanted to see if you can give us any color about around the path to that 12% NIM over the next few quarters and how much of it is rate dependent?

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you, Alfaro. Good morning. I'll take both of those questions. So just starting off with one off costs.

Speaker 3

We did have a few structural cost actions within the IB, not really that significant. And certainly, over the full year, we don't expect to spend more on SCAs than we have done historically, which we said was a €200,000,000 to €300,000,000 run rate. So for the full year, the thing that's really important here is the delivery of our gross efficiency savings. We've done another €200,000,000 in the quarter, taking to €400,000,000 to that €1,000,000,000 So that's really what's underpinning the cost results that you're seeing. And I'd just reiterate our cost guidance for the year is circa 63%.

Speaker 3

The consensus of total cost is there or thereabouts. So that's how I'd guide you there. In terms of the U. S. Consumer Bank, you're right, NII has fallen off a little bit in the quarter.

Speaker 3

There's a few things going on in there. Firstly, remember, we did the Blackstone deal in the Q1. So you're going to see some switching out of NII and into non NII. Secondly, I would say seasonally, sometimes a little bit lower in the second quarter than the first just because of the amount of customer repayments that we have. And thirdly, within that, there is a little bit of lumpiness in terms of customer reward amortization.

Speaker 3

But that ultimately is a really good sign because it means we're growing the book. But the way it can sort of transfer itself to contra revenue is it can be a bit lumpy. So that's all that's happening. So we haven't changed our pathway to a 12% NIM. That's really around pricing optimization.

Speaker 3

It's around increasing our proportion of retail within the book and also really focus on our funding costs. And you'll note that our retail deposits are now 60 7%. We're really pushing that towards greater than 75% to deliver that 12% NIM. But thank you for the questions.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Can we go to the next one, please? Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Joseph Dickerson from Jefferies. Please go ahead, Joseph. Your line is now open.

Speaker 5

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I guess my 2 would be, is there any follow through in 20 252026 from this upgraded UK, NII? As you mentioned, there's an implied $2,000,000,000 of structural hedge income growth, assuming that you reinvest 75% of the maturities. But it seems like your NII upgrade today is based in part on more stable deposits.

Speaker 5

So would it be unreasonable to assume there's some upside to that $2,000,000,000 based on greater than 75% of the maturities being reinvested? That's number 1. And then number 2, one of the issues that investors have with your 2026 targets is that the high single digit revenue growth in the CIB is on the flat risk weighted asset base. And it looks like in the quarter, you needed $3,000,000,000 of incremental risk weighted assets to grow revenue. So I guess how do we square the circle in terms of maintaining the RWA balances relatively flat on 2023.

Speaker 5

I mean, it was nice to see the revenue productivity picked up year on year, but still we've had a few questions on that today. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you, Joe. I'll take both of those. So on the first point, what we've seen and observed over the last quarter is a real stabilization in our deposit position. And that's really led us to upgrade our NII today for the U.

Speaker 3

K. And for the group to circa €6,300,000,000 to 11 €1,000,000,000 The way we think of that is really an underpin to what we are doing. This is a plan of many parts. We set out really detailed targets and plans in February of this year really to sort of guide you towards what was important to us and allow you to track our progress. So as we continue through the plan, we're pleased to see this progress.

Speaker 3

But as I said, a plan of many parts, and we have more things to deliver around our efficiencies and obviously around our capital allocation. So that's the reason really why we're not upgrading 2026 at this point in time. Of course, in isolation, the movement in rates, you would expect to have some impact on that €2,000,000,000 number. But we're not going to mark to market our 2026 targets on a quarterly basis. We're just very, very focused internally on disciplined execution against the targets that we've given you already.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

It's sensible.

Speaker 3

Yes. Thank you. On the second one in terms of IV RWAs, I mean, there's nothing really to call out here and certainly not any change in intention. What we saw, particularly towards the end of the quarter, was some increases in RWAs that we would say are largely temporary and certainly not an indication of a change of direction or intent. Our objective here is twofold.

Speaker 3

Firstly, to hold the RWAs of the IB broadly flat. And again, you can see that you call that the RWA productivity. We're pleased to see that go up year on year whilst also growing the other side of the balance sheet. So I would say, largely temporary in nature and nothing really to call out specifically. But thank you for the question.

Speaker 3

Can we go to the next caller, please?

Operator

The next question comes from Benjamin Thomas from RBC. Please go ahead, Benjamin. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First one is on

Speaker 7

the RoTE. It's tracking slightly ahead of guidance

Speaker 8

for this year. I appreciate your guidance, rate and number. The extent that you are encouraged to

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you very much, Ben. In ROTE terms and in terms of delivery of our plan, we are on track versus where we would expect to be at this stage after 2 quarters. So we're firmly in line with our plan, and therefore, it wouldn't cause us to change either our ROCE guidance for this year or the longer term or indeed our capital distribution plans, and that's why we've reiterated them today. In terms of deposit trends, you're right, we're seeing greater stability or that stability come a little faster than we expected, perhaps that's how to think about it.

Speaker 3

We do, however, expect the structural hedge notional to continue to fall broadly in line with broader deposit trends. Customers continue to seek yield even though they're doing so at a much sort of slower level of migration than before. But we reassess that structural hedge very carefully with each passing month. We regard it as a key way in which we manage the interest rate risk in our income line. So we'll continue to monitor it and update Ben.

Operator

The next question comes from Guy Stebbings from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead, Guy. Your line is now open.

Speaker 9

Hi, good morning all. Thanks for taking the question. Just some questions around Slide 10 and the hedge. Firstly, could you confirm how much of the notional is attributed to the locked in component that you referred to of 4.0 in 2025 and 3.2 in 2026. I'm presuming it's sort of an order magnitude of 70% to 75% in 2025% and 55% in 2026, but any color there would be very helpful.

Speaker 9

And then in terms of the 1.5% maturing yield, which I think is consistent with prior disclosure, could you remind us sort of how that breaks down between each year? And just a sort of final one on this slide. Maybe I'm reading too much into dotted lines and sort of putting a ruler of print step, but it looks to me like it's near sort of 2.5% in 2026, the gross yield in that dark blue dotted line. I would have thought given prior disclosure and comments, we might be near a 3%. So yes, can I just check?

Speaker 9

I'm not reading too much into maybe how that line dots across. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thanks, Guy. On your first question, we'll probably need to come back to you in relation to that. On the second question around the 1.5% maturing yield. So the way I think about this is that on average, the sort of tenure that we've got here is between 2.5% and 3 But there's actually a range of maturities within there.

Speaker 3

And that really reflects how we think about the composition of our deposit book varying behavioral sort of trends that we see within there. So we haven't guided or given you any clarity about how that actually breaks down between those tenures. But just to say, over the next 3 years, we expect the maturing yield to be about 1.5%, and it's pretty consistent over that period. And then on the final question, which was around the gross yield, again, we don't guide to gross yields. We've given you some math in February, which is really how we expect that structural hedge income to pan out over time.

Speaker 3

What I would just say is you can see that it continues to grind higher, and I think the slide shows that well. So at Q1, we were at 9 point €3,000,000,000 of locked in income. Now we're at €11,700,000,000 of locked in income. And obviously, in the current year, that is 4.5 percent locked in already by the half year versus the total we had for last year of 3.6 percent. So that's really how we focus on it, less about the overall yield and more about how much are we locking in both as a combination of the notional, but also obviously the yield and the hedge itself.

Speaker 3

So that's how we think about it, but we'll come back to you with a bit more color on the first.

Speaker 9

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you. Perhaps we can go to the next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Amit Goel from Mediobanca. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Hi. Thank you. So my few questions, maybe they follow on a little bit from Joe's. But the last one is, I think consensus outside of the IB now already largely reflects the 26 target. So again, I'm just wondering how much scope there is to be those levels.

Speaker 7

I mean, especially in the U. K. Where rates are better. And I guess by extending the duration of the hedge, I suppose the deposits are a bit more sticky. You're talking about stabilization.

Speaker 7

So the 25% reduction in hedge size, it doesn't I'm not sure if that does seem a bit too conservative. And then the second question is again just on the capital allocation. So I appreciate you commented that some of the RWA increase in the IB has been a bit temporary in the quarter. But that is where we've seen most of the increase year to date and quarter to date. So just curious when we'll start to see the allocation trend towards that 50% target, which could be important for seeing further rerating.

Speaker 7

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thanks, Amna. In terms of the pathway on NII, not only for BUK, but for the other parts of that complex, so Corporate Banking, International Corporate Banking and indeed our Private Banking and Wealth Business. I mean, obviously, the trends that we're seeing around deposits and indeed rates are helpful, But we do see them as an underpin and hopefully an indication of our confidence in reaching those 26 numbers. And as it relates to the hedge, as I said, I'm not going to mark to market that hedge income on a quarterly basis.

Speaker 3

We gave you some moving parts. And just to remind everybody, we've got £170,000,000,000 maturing over the 3 years. We've got a maturing yield of about 1.5%. We expect at high level to roll about 75% of that. And at the time of the investor And Again, there are some movements in the yield curve that might, in isolation, push that number up a bit.

Speaker 3

But this is a plan of many, many parts. So we're very focused on delivering the greater than 12% ROTE in the round. On your second question around capital allocation, I would reiterate we think those RWAs are largely temporary, and there's obviously also a natural seasonality to the RWA path within the IB. I think more fundamentally, though, what we're talking about here is the 2 part strategy. Firstly, holding that broadly flat and secondly, growing elsewhere.

Speaker 3

So you're going to see this meaningfully change as a percentage really from the Q4 onwards. And that in the first part comes from the completion of Tesco, which we now expect to happen on the 1st November, but also really the organic progress that we're making in terms of the balance sheet. Now you can't see that yet coming through in strong balance sheet growth. That is what we expected. You might remember that in February, we said that we expected that the U.

Speaker 3

K. Balance sheet would get smaller before it got bigger, and that indeed is what's happening. But we're seeing good growth momentum. The mortgage market is up. We're taking a greater share of that, and we're also taking a good share of high loan to value mortgages.

Speaker 3

Our cards balances are up quarter on quarter. And in Corporate Lending, whilst we haven't seen the balance sheet move yet, you can see the RWAs going up because we've extended balances to clients. So I think it's really sort of from quarter 4 onwards that you're going to start to see this move meaningfully. But just to reiterate, on the RWAs and the IB, our intention is still for this to be broadly flat and really for the work to be done elsewhere in moving that percentage. But thank you for the question.

Speaker 3

Perhaps we could go to the next one, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Edward Firth from Stifel. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Speaker 2

Yes. Good morning, everybody. I had two questions, please. The first one was U. S.

Speaker 2

Consumer cards credit quality. I think it's good to see the provision charge has turned. But if I look at your nonperforming loans in the quarter, they were up, I think, 7% or 8%. So just trying to get a sense as to where we are in that cycle and how we should expect that to progress from here, if that's okay? That's the first question.

Speaker 2

And then the second question, I'm just trying to sort of square the BUK performance with some of your targets and with some of the revenue coming through from the hedge because you're making around a 20% return on equity in the first half. And even if I normalize impairments, when you take your share of the hedge benefit that's going to go in there, that's probably close to 25% or even high 20s returns as of today. And yet in your target, I think you said greater than 15% return on tangible by 26%. And I know obviously, greater than 15% encompasses an awful lot, but I guess mid to high 20s, it goes a long way ahead of that. So I'm just trying to think, what should we be thinking about in terms of the difference between the greater than 15% and the mid to high 20s?

Speaker 2

And how do you think about a mid to high 20s return in a sort of we had to listen to the FDA talking about consumer duty yesterday. I mean, should we be expecting some of this 2,000,000,000 hedge to actually go to depositors? Or are you we should be confident that we can hold the bulk of that? Thanks very much.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you, Ed. I'll start on cards. Benkert might want to add something on U. S.

Speaker 3

Quality also, and then we'll go into the U. K. Performance. Then really, the U. S.

Speaker 3

CB, EMPEBIT pathway is panning out as we expected to. So last year, when we saw the macroeconomic variable, particularly around unemployment, start to increase, what we expected was, 1st, delinquencies would increase and secondly, real, if you like, nonperformance and write offs would follow. And that's exactly what's happening here. And you can see it quite clearly in the chart, which I think is on Slide 13. So this time last year, we got ahead of this in a couple of ways.

Speaker 3

The first was by building our reserve proactively. And so you can see that reserve build through the second half of last year. And that was in anticipation of the write offs and that movement of nonperforming loans that you're now seeing. So from here, what I expect is consistent with what we thought at the beginning of the year, which is actually we'd expect impairments in the second half to be lower. Now the composition of that is going to still look a bit like what it does in Q2.

Speaker 3

You're going to

Speaker 2

have relatively high levels of write offs, and

Speaker 3

you're going to have 'twenty four, it's going to be lower than 'twenty three. But 2024, it's going to be lower than 23. But we did take actions last year in credit lines also in anticipation of this, and that certainly helps. And just to remind you, this is a high quality book. Venkat, anything?

Speaker 1

Yes. I second everything Annette said. And I think the other thing to look at is, in credit cards, as you know, one of the most important factors driving performance is employment or unemployment. The Fed statement yesterday pointed even though they didn't change rates, pointed towards a balance in their concern shifting a little away from inflation into softness in employment. That is speaking to the thing that we put in and anticipated.

Speaker 1

And we've risked, as Anna said, tried to risk manage the portfolio in advance of that. And so we hope we're prepared for what could be a softness. But the charge the nonperforming piece is exactly as Anna said. It's following upon a provision build, which was earlier.

Speaker 3

Okay. Then on your second point, just around BUK performance, we take confidence from the quality and the stability of the balance sheet, but that balance sheet is going to change from here. We are anticipating asset growth. So obviously, we expect NII to grow over time, but I'm also expecting that the RWAs here are going to grow over time. And clearly, we haven't seen growth in assets in the U.

Speaker 3

K. For a couple of years now. So that will moderate it. And it's just a reflection of really, if you like, the emphasis moving from profit being in liabilities to really trying to grow the asset books for when the curve turns. So that's really what we're thinking about here.

Speaker 3

Think of it as an increase in equity rather than a reduction in returns. And that's really what's led to our RoTE thought process. Venkat, anything to add

Speaker 2

on that?

Speaker 1

Yes. I completely agree. You have to look at this business, as Anna said, over a cycle and the composition of the revenues shifts from liabilities to assets over that period. And as asset revenues increase, so does your equity. And that will have the effect of moderating the ROTE.

Speaker 1

And then impairment. Yes. And impairment has remained fairly low. And the UK, we'll see what the Bank of England does later today. But the UK employment picture has remained strong.

Speaker 1

I mean, there's really only one way this thing can go. And so you've got to be careful about where impairments go in the long run. And that will be the other moderating influence.

Speaker 3

Yes. And I think you sort of called that out in your remarks that we're still expecting the sort of longer term trends here. To your specific point on the SCA and consumer duty, there is nothing specific in our RoTE guidance that relates to that at all. We feel we have the right ranges both across savings and indeed elsewhere, and they're in compliance with it. So there's nothing there that would mitigate or moderate that RoTE.

Speaker 1

Yes. And look, this is an important protection measure for consumers. We fully support it. And I think it's important for the large financial institutions, all financial institutions to be fully in conformance with the requirements of those practices and they're good practices.

Speaker 2

Great. Thanks so much.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Can we go to the next question, please?

Operator

The next question comes from Chris Can't from Autonomous. Please go ahead, Chris. Your line is now open.

Speaker 6

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have one on BUK and one on consumer please, the U. S. Consumer.

Speaker 6

So on the U. K, in your remarks, you referenced the stabilization in deposit books coming off the back of pricing actions that you've taken earlier in the year. I mean, you don't give us much disclosure around your deposit costs. But if I look at the interest expense you're disclosing in the BUK Financials, I think that's down half on half, I. E.

Speaker 6

Lower overall interest expenses in the first half versus the second half of last year. So I just wanted to understand a little bit more what pricing actions you've taken and if there is any color you could give us around the level of your average deposit rates, which some of your domestic peers do provide, that would be very welcome. And on consumer, obviously income down, you've spoken to that in terms of the amortization and various other things, bits of lumpiness, I guess. How should we think about the progression of income for that segment from here? Should we be expecting growth to be coming through in the second half?

Speaker 6

Or is more of the progression you're expecting to that 12% NIM back end

Speaker 2

loaded within the plan?

Speaker 3

Thanks, Chris Thanks, Chris. So we don't disclose our deposit costs. And obviously, within the interest progress around our not only our range of savings, it's much broader than it was, but you can also see, and I think it's probably on Slide 16, the continued progression that the customer has towards yields. So fixed term deposits continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace. We have a lower proportion of fixed term deposits than the industry more broadly, which is what you would expect, but still significant a significant change there.

Speaker 3

I would just say, really, it's about range. It's about pricing consistently. It feels like we've performed well in the Q1 sorry, in the first and second quarter. The savings market overall has grown. We initially lost share last year, but I would say that's very much stabilized this year as we've seen those benefits come through.

Speaker 3

And current account share has actually been flat throughout. So it feels like we've managed that well. In terms of consumer in the U. S, there is a bit of seasonality to U. S.

Speaker 3

Cards. Typically, you see slightly higher income and slightly higher impairment in the Q4. So we'd expect those trends to be the same this year. It's a bit the converse of what you see in the current quarter. There's a seasonal down in Q2, and you tend to see that go up again for holiday spend in Q4.

Speaker 3

So that's the seasonal element of it. And more broadly than that, obviously, we do expect to grow. Cards growth takes a while, so you're going to see this happen sort of over time. There are also some headwinds to NIM and income that we called out. So specifically around late fees, although that appears to be delayed at this point in time, We'd expect to take some actions in response to that in terms of our optimization.

Speaker 3

We're continuing to build our deposits in the U. S. So I'd expect these to sort of manifest themselves gradually over time the implementation of that, Chris. But you're going to see some lumpiness from, for example, the implementation of that late fees whenever it comes.

Speaker 6

Thank you. On the U. K. Deposit piece, I know you don't disclose you don't give us a specific number. I guess the reason for the question is when I look at data we do get for 2023, which we can at least see on an annual basis, Barclays in the UK was paying meaningfully lower rates than large incumbent peer banks in the UK.

Speaker 6

I guess off the back of that we saw deposit volumes compress for Barclays to a far greater degree than for those peers. So customers moved elsewhere because you weren't kind of keeping up, I guess, with even the large incumbent banks. We've seen that stabilize in the first half. Is it just that the customers who were going to move have now moved and actually you've retained a meaningful pricing differential to large peers? Or do you feel like you've substantially caught up with large peers in terms of your rates?

Speaker 3

So as I said, we've seen that market share trend really stabilize in the Q2. And what that tells me is that 2 things are going on. Firstly, our range and pricing performance is better. And secondly, there is some moderation there more broadly across the market. So I think it's both, Chris, actually.

Speaker 1

Okay. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you, Chris. Perhaps we could go to the next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Robin Down from

Speaker 10

Just a couple on the businesses being disposed of. With the German business, obviously, you've called out the kind of revenue contribution that that's making. But I don't think we've seen the cost and the impairment contribution. Is that business kind of a breakeven business? I see most of the impairments in the head office relate to the general consumer finance business.

Speaker 10

So is the gap there just kind of costs of around kind of $30,000,000 $40,000,000 a quarter? Is that how we should be thinking about that? And the second question, I guess, is probably more for the Venkat. I think you're quoted on Bloomberg this morning saying that the sales of merchant acquiring unit is underway. I was just wondering if you could give us any kind of update on that disposal.

Speaker 10

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Robin. So on German cards, I mean, you're broadly in the right ballpark. It's not a significant PBT contributor to the bank. And therefore, on sale, the meaningful difference that you're going to see in the P and L or balance sheet is actually the release of their RWAs. And that's really what drives that 10 basis points of CET1 accretion that will happen either in Q4 or Q1 is our expectation.

Speaker 3

So you're in the right ballpark. Venkat?

Speaker 1

Yes. So I think, Robin, what I said earlier on the media call is that we had 3 acquisitions or three acquisitions and 3 disposals and 2 one acquisitions stated for this year. The acquisition was Tesco, of course. The disposals were German cards and Italian mortgages, which have one been announced, German card, Italian mortgages announced and completed. And then the last one was merchant acquiring.

Speaker 1

And on merchant acquiring, what I had said is in a way of all the things, this is the most complex one because of technology involved, because of the kind of financial arrangements we would want and the client service we want. So that process is still ongoing. And what I said also on the call is that we have nothing to say about it now. When we do, we'll tell you, but it is the most complex of that list of 4.

Speaker 10

Okay, great. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Thank you. Perhaps we can go to our next question, please.

Operator

Our final question we have time for today comes from Andrew Coombs from Citigroup. Please go ahead, Andrew. Your line is now open.

Speaker 8

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. A couple of strategic ones, please. Firstly, on U. S.

Speaker 8

Consumer, I've noted the delay in the IRB inflation until Q1. But we're now in an environment whereby it looks like for the U. S. Banks, the delay in Basel 3.1 could potentially be much longer. I know when you gave your Investor Day, you talked about the risk weight density going from 100 to 160 and then through mitigation back to 145 and you thought that would be comparable to the U.

Speaker 8

S. Banks post Basel III. But in an environment where Basel III doesn't get introduced in the U. S. Or Basel III.1, sorry, in the U.

Speaker 8

S, How do you feel about the competitive positioning of that business? If a co brand deal comes up for renewal, do you think you can still price competitively versus the U. S. Peers given a higher risk weight density? And then second question, similar theme strategy, but Investment Bank given I know you said the IB RWA increase is temporary this quarter.

Speaker 8

But if somebody comes to you and says, I'd like an extra $100,000,000 of RWAs, I think I can generate more than 12% RoTE on that from your investment bank. You've always said your North Star is the ROATI. So do you say, yes, fine, please go ahead? Or is it a case of reducing the RWAs in 63% down to 50% of group in the investment bank by holding them stable is more of a priority?

Speaker 3

Okay. Thank you, Andy. I'll start, and then I'll hand over to Venkat. So on Consumer, you're right. These regulatory models are complex to implement.

Speaker 3

We've just seen a movement over the quarter end really that takes us from Q4 to Q1. And that has always been an acceleration of the Basel requirements for us, and we talked about that in February. So we always expected there to be a gap. Obviously, we'll have to see what happens to the U. S.

Speaker 3

Rules. And it's very, very difficult for us to comment on that until we see both that and indeed the final U. K. Rules. In the meantime, we're focused on the things that we can control.

Speaker 3

So we're focused on the commercial actions that we said we would take, which are really around improving the capital efficiency of the business through doing trades like the one that we've already done with Blackstone. We continue to work on the NIM, as I alluded to before, through pricing, through deposits, etcetera. We've got a big program here of efficiency and digitization. All of those things will improve the returns of the business. So we're really sort of focusing on execution of the PCA that we can control in which we have line of sight to.

Speaker 1

Yes. I'll just add to what Anna is saying, which is that we will control what we can control, and we try to do that in a very efficient way. And we're doing things in capital management, which try to alleviate what could be the impact of these changes. More broadly speaking, of course, we have the view, which we've shared publicly, that we think the changes in the UK and the U. S.

Speaker 1

Ideally should be similar and should happen at roughly the same time. That would be our wish. And then if I come to your point on the RWA and the increases, what I would say to you is the strategic ambition or goal of this bank is to keep IB RWAs roughly flat, absorbing some of the capital impacts we've spoken about and then growing RWAs outside of the IB and therefore shrinking the relative proportion of the IB. Now if somebody comes with an interesting high ROTE trade, we would of course consider it. It would have to be shorter term, right?

Speaker 1

It's not something that, that can affect the broader strategy. So the broader strategy is that relative reduction. And if there are shorter term opportunities that we can take, of course, we would consider them, but at the secondary part of the broader strategy, all right?

Speaker 3

And just to remind you, Andy, the areas that we want to grow our RWAs in, so that €30,000,000,000 they are in the areas of the bank where the returns are meaningfully higher than the group average. So across the U. K, across the Corporate Bank and indeed across Private Banking and Wealth, they are at least high teens, if not into the 20s. So that's the trade off that we are really thinking about here as we consider the capital allocation for the firm. Okay.

Speaker 3

So I think that was our final question. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you for your continued interest in Barclays. We're pleased to give you the results today. We look forward very much to seeing some of you on the road over the next few weeks.

Speaker 3

Or indeed, if you've got a holiday, we'll see you in September. But thank you very much, and see you soon.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Barclays Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00