Sparebanken Vest

Hjertelig velkommen alle sammen til kvartalspresentasjonen for første kvartal. Allerhelst skulle jeg holdt denne om to dager, 2. mai, for da er Sparbanket Norge ett år. Det hadde kanskje blitt med litt færre tilhører, men uansett, vi er i ferd med å fylle ett år, og jeg opplever... at Sparbank i Norge har etableret et fantastisk utgangspunkt for å etablere en national, sterkt presterende sparbank med utgangspunkt i den innsatsen som er lagt ned av bankens ansatte dette første året. Og som vanlig så kan dere sende spørsmål in til denne e-mailadressen så skal vi svare på disse spørsmålene etter presentasjonen. Så send spørsmål til denne e-mailadressen så får vi det i forhold til den dialogen vi skal ha etter presentasjonen. I'm on the right track. We delivered quite a solid quarter, even though we're in the middle of a whirlwind. We're in the middle of a whirlwind in terms of establishing a completely new national bank. But we delivered a strong quarter again, 16-1 in our own capital collection. Again, over the target. We have a long track record, back to 2013. in terms of achieving the financial goals that we have set ourselves, and we are working hard to achieve this in the coming time, also in the 1.5 years we think we have, before we are fully ready with the foundation for Sparbank Norway. Some of the things that make us on a journey where we think that we on the starting line in 2028 will be finished with a solid foundation for the savings market in Norway is that in the middle of this wave we have a capital coverage that is well above the solidity goals it should reach. We also have capital synergies that are still not realized. We have significant fusion costs that we will also have throughout this year. We are still early in the synergies when it comes to cost synergies, and we are in the middle of a heavy investment phase when it comes to establishing a national position, both when it comes to distribution and trademarks. But despite this, a result that is well above the financial goals that we have indicated to the capital market. One of the things that I am extremely pleased with, we don't have growth numbers for the first quarter for all the banks that are natural to compare with, but we have that for 2025. And if we look at 2025, we already have a fantastic growth journey. I think this is a good indication. On the power that lies in the new brand, the new organization, when we come out of this fusion and are finished with the technical fusion in October, we have even better conditions to really compete for market share in the coming time. But if we look at our numbers for 2025, which was a demanding year for fusion, we are the one who takes market share and is the market winner through a quite demanding year that has drawn a lot of resources and requires a lot of resources internally. We have a growth in 2025 of 9.3% on the personal market, and an international growth on the operating market of 8.2%. We see that our value proposition on the operating market is significantly strengthened through this fusion, whether it is to be able to take greater engagement, better digital platforms, better industry competence. Many areas could have been mentioned, but we have strengthened ourselves through this vision, and we can see that in the future, and we will see that in the years to come. It will materialize, I think, to an even greater extent with the team we have now. So we are a bank that has delivered a very good journey in the capital market. Here we have taken a total withdrawal for the last three years and a total withdrawal for the last five years. A very good withdrawal, and we are going to do everything we can so that the next journey and the next chapter in this bank will also be a very good journey for the capital market. And that's why the board discussed yesterday, and that's why we are informing today, that we are looking forward to a transformation program that will go out in 2026 and in 2027, consisting of these six things that will come in addition to continuous improvement. But here we have six programs as part of a larger transformation program that we are going to work with and that we want to have in place at the start of 2028. It's about ensuring That we are in place and have invested in the national distribution and received revenue from it. It is about having an offensive approach to using AI. We have employed an accelerator team on AI in the organization and we are working continuously now with use cases and concrete things on AI that will help us become completely leading when it comes to cost-effective and effective work processes. In the last two years, we have invested in a significant loan platform that will give us all the conditions to fine-tune the balance between effective operation and credit appetite, risk appetite. We are in the middle of the process of core conversion and system modernization. We are working very hard to launch a new headquarters in Kristiansand, which is an important part of the merger agreement, and we are very concerned about keeping what we promised in the merger. And we will also, in good dialogue with the employees, specify an obligation adjustment in the future, which is to ensure that we have the right obligation in the right places, with the future picture we see for the bank. I will come back to this in more detail in the presentation, but an important part of being very well equipped as a strong national savings bank at the beginning of 2028. Then I will share my presentation in three. First a little about underlying bank operations. En god enkapitalavkastning, return on, eller rote, som også er et viktig begrepp for oss, der vi har justert for fysjonseffekter, så leverer vi et kvartal på 18,3, kanskje mest sammenlignbart der vi står nå med enkapitalavkastning vi hadde før fysjonen, og så har vi et resultat per enkapitalvis på 4,48 kroner. Et godt kvartal, men vi er fortsatt som sagt preget av en god del ting som kommer til å materialisere seg, og vi kommer til å løse i de neste... 18 months, we think. We also see pressure on the net interest rate, as we have seen the contours of other banks that have put forward the results. We see full effects of this through revaluations, and we have two fewer interest rates in the quarter, which affects the net interest rate somewhat, but a little lower from Q1 2024, about 2.6 billion in net interest rate in the first quarter. The underlying development in other revenues has a long-term positive development, so the fourth quarter is always especially good, and we have bonus provisions, for example, in Braga and Frende, which is helping to pull up the results. But if we look at Q1 2025, we are up from 410 to 435 million in net provision revenue for the first quarter, a good underlying development. And Borea, among other things, is in the process of pulling this up, and it should also be noted that Borea is in a very good development. And what we see here, if you look at AUM under administration in Borea, it is growing strongly, and we have got new owners on the owner's side in Borea, and Borea we are quite sure will become a jewel in Sparbank Norway, and for the other owners, and we have definitely succeeded with what has been the goal so far when it comes to getting We have increased AOM under management, and we have a very nice journey, and we have very good managers, so we have a very good track record when it comes to withdrawing funds that have the longest history. Looking at the underlying cost development, it is 2.8%, including investment in the new market area. We are slightly above our cost-income target. This is, among other things, because we still have a journey to make when it comes to taking out these fusion synergies that we have previously signalled. If we look at the cost development, then we have 20.5 million lower fusion costs than we had in the previous quarter last year. Then we have a significant increase in the description of immaterial properties, which comes from the fusion at 44 million up, and then we have the overall cost development at 29 million, which means that we have an underlying cost growth of 2.8 percent. Good cost development, good cost control, still significant synergy potential, among other things in IT, which we are working with to realize in relation to technical fusion. We are a low-risk bank. We have only 25% of the loans to business customers in the bank. The rest are Brage Finance, Bulder, and the person in the customer market is ex-Bulder. We also have a very good geographical spread, which reduces the risk of concentration geographically. Sparbank i Norge, Vestland utgjør 20-30%, Agder 18%, Oslo Akershus er allerede betydelig med 15% av utlånet. En godt diversifisert utlandsbok som kommer til å bli enda mer diversifisert i årene som kommer i tråd med nye etableringar. Our losses over time have been stable low. I would add here that we are on a record low level historically. It is not unthinkable that the loss level in Norwegian banks will rise now, but we look forward to the fact that the loss level is still very moderate. Then we have an increase for our part in individual investments, a little return on model investments, In summary, it is a stable and long-term stable loss level, and it is the macro picture that determines how this will turn out. But over time, we have been a bank with low risk and relatively low losses, and it is quite safe to say that we have the foundation to be in in the future. En av styrkemeldingene i dette kvartalet er kanskje kapitaldekningen vår. Den er på 18.1. Det er langt over soliditetsmålet vårt på 15.9, så vet vi at vi blir SIFI-bank i løpet av 2027, så da tikker det en 1%-poeng opp, men fortsatt godt over også det målet. Så vi har en veldig robust kapitalsituasjon som borger for et godt utgangspunkt for å vokse videre, og ikke minst også en attraktiv utdelingsgrad når det gjelder bankens overskudd i tiden som kommer an. It was first a little bit about underlying banking, then a little bit about the strategic picture. Share a little bit about where we are going and second a little bit about where we stand in relation to that picture. I would say overall, we are very good in the route. We are a bank that is just under a year old. And we have established, I would say, a fantastic good starting point for building this bank. As we have said, we will build all the time. A nationally strong savings bank, focused on savings bank values. And there we have some long-term goals in relation to our stakeholders. We have some strategic positions that we are very good at building. And then we have some priorities that we are also on the map with, whether it is about taking out cost synergies, realization of capital synergies. We work very well on the cultural side. I will come to that later. We are in favor of launching new loan processes on the personal market. We are well on the move with a project on the operating market. We are in the lead when it comes to technical integration and technical fusion. The test conversion has been carried out. It looks good. We are the growth winner in the market, even though we have been in a heavy fusion. We are in the lead. It will happen when it comes to the establishment of these new cities. And then the foreign growth in Buller will swing a little. It is a little lower in the first quarter, but very good on a 12-month basis, and quite confident that we are well within the scope of reaching 86 billion by the beginning of this year, and 100 billion abroad by the beginning of 2028. Over on the net, we are in good shape. We have achieved a lot in the first 12 months, and we have a team and a culture that really wants to deliver on this, and I see that, and that is why we are in shape after about a year. We have some financial goals, which are over 13% peace, we have a root goal, we have a cost-income goal, which we are just a little over now, but which is safe for us to work on Down again, we are far above the core capital coverage, and we have just left behind a year where we have a very good degree of division. So we have some fusion-related goals that I will come back to in the following slides. The first is our fusion costs, where we have said that we will use a maximum of 380 million in relation to the fusion with both Sør and Oslofjord Sparebank. And there is a good part that remains that day, as you can see here, 78 million is estimated from Q2 to Q4, and a good part of it is linked to technical integration. So we will have some fusion costs also in 2027, estimated 25 million collected. The target image is 380 million. We are roughly in the route. When it comes to the realization of cost synergies, a large part of this is linked to technical integration, which is scheduled for October. And here we are also reasonably good in the route. We will realize over 425 million in cost synergies as part of these two fusions, and I think we will be able to do that. We are in the route, and a significant part of this will come in Q4 when we are finished with technical integration. We are also involved in the capital synergy. It amounts to about 800 million kroner. It is linked to the IRB effects on the BN portfolio in the former Sør Sparbank. We have also sent an IRB request for permission to convert the portfolio to our IRB models. We are waiting for answers. As I said, a large part of the capital synergy is realized, but it still amounts to a part, and that is about 0.8 billion kroner, as illustrated in this picture. A little bit about our growth goals. We have been very clear on this since the capital market day in August last year. A little bit of secondary information on some of these things. Borea is in the lead. Brage Vox is in the lead. Frende is also well in the lead. Brandkassen is very happy to have them on the team. Those who went out of Jens Edie and into Frende. They have a good start. And then I will say a little bit about the stock market and the personal market in the following highlights. We are also within the interval here, largely, in relation to a very ambitious level of growth. The K2 growth is not the worst yet, so this means that we take significant market share. Our 12-month growth on the personal market is 8.7%. In this quarter, it is not Bulda that is going. We have a good 12-month growth on the personal market now, with 5.4%. Ex-Bulda, which is also above the K2 growth. And we have a very good development in the operating market. Our value proposition through fusion is significantly strengthened. We notice that in dialogue with the operating customers. Many who now say that now we also want an alternative to a couple of the big banks. Can we have a meeting with you? We are very happy that we get a new big national bank in here and we want to use you on the bank side in a different way than before. So I'm pretty sure that we will have a very good growth and a good starting point. For a risk-based, well-founded foreign growth on the business market in the coming time, and we can already see this, a 12-month growth of 7.1% is well above K2, and a very fine foreign growth should not be too high either, then there is a risk for negative risk selection, but that's the way it is. Very satisfied with the 12-month growth on the personal business market right now. Bulder is strengthening significantly in the supply chain, in a very fine development. Knowledge, trademark building sits. We have a housing volume now of 76.5 billion, and if there is more in the mortgage market than we expect, then it is typical triggers that will contribute to significant traffic in the Bulder concept. We have seen over time that this swings a little, but the 12-month growth is very good, and we are confident that we will also get to in 2026. Bragge is also in a good development. We are not 100% where we want to be. We are a little over 11% on one-capital transfer, but the underlying growth is good, and as we get some deep funding in Bragge Finance, the one-capital transfer will also move towards 13%, and it is a clear goal that we will have a good foundation to clear over the course of the year, and also a company that is strengthening. New distributors are coming in, new owners have come in. through 2025, so it is a very good starting point for us to deliver over the target of 13% of the GDP in the coming time. Where are we then? In relation to this growth journey for the bank, we have said that we will organically manage a growth of close to 620 million by the beginning of 2028. In other words, in the big picture, we are out in relation to that. Now we have a foreign balance at the start of Q1 at 494 billion kroner and well out there to be able to achieve this organic growth goal. And then I hope and believe that there will also be other banks that will want to be on the journey to SparmarketNorge during this period, so structural growth will in that case come on the side of this goal. Those were the first two parts of my presentation. Then the last one. I will talk a little more about the transformation we are looking forward to doing in 2026 and 2027, in order to be really well equipped for 2028 and beyond. As I said, we are a bank that is almost one year old, and we are still in the dustbin, and we still have some fundamental things that we need to have in place in order to be really well equipped for a strong competitive position from 2028 and beyond. The things we will have in place in this period, before the start of 2028, is, as I said, a national distribution that is in place, that we have started to get revenue from, so I will second that later. I went through the other points initially. It's about AI, it's about loan processes, it's about a modern core, it's about a head office in Kristiansand, and it's about crew adjustment to ensure that we are in line with the future picture we see. A little about these different areas. We are well in the process, and I did not think we would be so well in the process of establishing a national position when we stood and saw and we had the celebration of the legal fusion on the 2nd of May last year. We are in place now in Molde, we have opened, we are in place in Oslo, we had an opening there in January. Tønsberg has opened and is in good shape. We expect that we will land the leader of the Trondheim investment in the next two weeks, most likely. Pretty sure that we will get a very good leader for that investment. We are going to open Omo in Rana in Q4, Christian Sund opened in Q3 in 2006, and we are going to have an opening in Tromsø, where we are in place with the premises. Reimond has started, we have got BMW in place, we have a strong team on the way in. We are looking forward to the opening in Tromsø, most likely in September in 2006. We haven't looked at the data yet, but it's coming soon. So in record time, we are ready to establish ourselves in the big cities we think we will be in, in the first chapter of Sparbank Norway. And it's incredibly exciting to see that the best people want to be part of building something new. And we get incredibly strong candidates who want to be part of the team in all these areas. And that pays very well for a good development and a strong development in these areas with reasonable risk. When it comes to loan processes for pensioners, as we have said in previous presentations, we have invested a lot in the last two years, together with the Bulda team, in building a loan process that is significantly better for customers digitally, but also significantly better for the employees. Already 35% of our loans on pensioners are through this flow, and when we are finished with technical vision, 100% of our loans are through CRED, as we have called this tool. and that will give significantly better customer experience and significantly reduced time for our advisors linked to the loan case. 60% of the loan cases in Cred are decided automatically and we have calculated the time savings from loan applicants to signing for customers to be a reduction of 58%. It is clear that response time in the housing market we have now is super important in terms of customer loyalty and in terms of getting customers in the strong competition we see. And then it is obvious that this will be effective and has already made quite significant progress in the time we used on a loan case on the pension market. Now our advisors in Kred, which then consists of 35% of the case in PT, Only deviation and everything else goes automatically through the loan process, and it is a revolution linked to the time our employees spend on loans on the stock market. Loans on the stock market are the entry level to sell a lot of the other services we have, so it is extremely important that this core process sits well. There we have made a formidable effort, and I am incredibly proud of the work that the team that has painted this credit card shirt has done. And we are quite sure that we will have this in-house. This is perhaps the most important core process for the stock market. We do not outsource it to others. We have to be able to sit and doubt and tune. on credit policy, learn, find out what the obstacles are, could we have taken more things automatically than we do. All this is core competence, core processes that we should have in-house and not have plans to put out of the bank. An incredibly important part of what our IT division will do in the future. Then I said that one of the six parts is also a technical vision and a modern and scalable core platform. Here we have just taken the timeline, technical integration. We will be in place at the beginning of October. We have a technical integration for Oslo Fjord Sparebank that will take place in the first half of 2017. In the course of 2027, we will be in place, together with our partners Tieto and Evry, with a modern core platform, which means that we are working on completely new technology in a range of areas, which takes down big machines and ensures the foundation, both in relation to cost-effective IT development, lower costs compared to Tieto and Evry, and not least, a safe pace in our IT development. So we are mobilizing now, together with our partner, Tieto and Evry. We have a very good collaboration with Mario and the team at Tieto now, and we are quite confident that we have run Early in 2027, in the middle of 2027, we will be ready and ready with this core banking platform. And then we are in a very good place in 2028, also when it comes to IT costs and a modern platform at the bottom. And what we believe in, is a two-part collaboration between the bank and Tieto Evri. We believe that the complexity that it would have made for us if we had been part of a large alliance, and that's three-part collaboration that many others have, it drives costs, it drives down time, and it also gives that it has a less agile platform at the bottom. and more to be coordinated. Our foundation for cost-effective operation and low K.I. lies in low complexity and a two-part collaboration at IT, which we see flies better than ever. And as I said, very pleased with the partnership we have with Tieto and Everi. We have managed to raise it to a completely different level than before. Thanks to being the other Agnes and Mario, we have really got this on our shoulders. And I see the contours of that when we are done with 2027, we are in a very, very good place. Then we work with BRG, an entrepreneur and a future architect, to build a really good main office in Kristiansand. In Jonsvold we are full today. We have also rented a neighbor's apartment. We are also going to build an attractive and strong main office in Kristiansand. We are very concerned about keeping what we promised in Fysjona. There we are well in line. Reilig Framstad and BRG work very well. This is a sketch of what the main office will look like. We are well in line. We work with the economy in the project. We work with tuning the project cost-wise. But we are quite confident that we will be able to achieve this in a good way. And this will be perhaps the most attractive workplace in the country. At least one of the top three. And that is important for us. We know that this is about people. We are going to build Norway's best savings bank. And we will not be able to do that if we do not attract the best people. And we think that there are many advantages to having a head office. This means that we can attract good people in two parts of the country. Not just in one part of the country in relation to building the main office functions for Sparbank Norway. So we see the possibility of this and are very good in the group in terms of building something that will really become a really attractive workplace in Sørland. In summary, we will work very intensively with these six things, and we will also come back to these topics on the capital market day in August. We will also count several things around these six working streams when we have been able to work a little more with it. As I said, the direction of this was agreed with the board yesterday, and this will be a very good foundation for Sparbank Norway in 2028. Then a little about the cultural work. There is no doubt that when you merge two savings banks, it is important to work with culture, leadership and ensure that it becomes one team as early as possible. We just come back from Hemsedal, where we had the first meeting, Camp Norway for the merged bank. It was underlined all week, and we had all our leaders in two groups. One group from Monday to Wednesday, one from Wednesday to Friday. And I just want to say that when I traveled home last Friday from Camp Norge in Hemsedal, I was filled with inspiration, because I experience that we are already about to become a strong team, a group that wants the same and believes in the same. And that is the most important foundation, we believe, to build this bank that came out very well in the first year. Over the past 10-12 months, we have been working with a reference literature, which is these four books. We strongly believe that if we are to succeed with the ambitious projects we have with Sparbank Norway, we must have joint references on what needs to be done to build a strong Norwegian Sparbank. There are many good books out there. We have chosen these four and worked very well with them. In a program structure, we have spent a lot of time on alignment, leadership and leadership meetings. We have Camp Norway, which is our signature meeting once a year. We will most likely have it in April next year as well. We have a structure with Horizont, we have professional breakfasts, we have winning practices where we train continuously performance-oriented leadership, and then we mostly start all the leadership meetings in the board of directors, and also the other leadership groups in the bank, with a leadership reflection linked to this literature at each leadership meeting. So we start with the most important thing at each leadership meeting, and that is culture and leadership. The summary of this is that we are in an incredibly good place now. We have a very exciting leadership spiral program. We are extremely interested in internal recruitment in leadership positions, where we have a very high percentage. As I said, we are very committed to leadership development. It is the foundation for a strong organizational culture. We see that we have an incredible attraction as Sparebanken Norge in the recruitment community now. We have never had a larger number of applicants for vacancies. We are in a completely different position than we were before. And we also see that we have a very low turnover, and we also have very strong internal recruitment, especially in leadership positions, where this number is at about 80% when it comes to recruitment for leadership positions. So we succeed in building a culture and a development culture where good people are well positioned when it comes to internal opportunities in the bank. And that is an important motivation factor for many, that they get the opportunity when they get opportunities in the bank. It also builds a strong culture, over time, which means that we manage to develop the bank in a good way. So 12 months, very intensive investment. We see the results and we see that we are in an incredibly good place already after a very short time. Many say that it takes three to five years to build a single culture after inflation. I experience that we have come incredibly far just after a year. And then, one last highlight before I sum it up, is that the motivation and desire to work in Sparbank Norway, of course, is about the culture in Sparbank Norway, but I experience that one of our strongest assets, also in the recruitment of good people and the maintenance of good people, is that they experience that they work in a place where the bank's results also come with customers and society to good. And there is no one who is in the position that Sparbank Norway is in, with 60% of society ownership, We, for 2025, have in the first quarter, divided 1.5 billion kroner in customer exchange to our customers. And we will in 2026, for the results in 2025, divide 1.5 billion kroner in gifts to the general public. This is also part of making us an attractive employer. People feel that they are part of making a difference, and are an incredibly important driver in Sparbank Norway. We have a unique share, 60% social capital, that we are going to use in a smart way in relation to giving people We have a slightly larger opinion about working in Sbarre Banken in Norway than perhaps other savings banks. We see this as an effect, and we see that people are very proud when we, just a little over a week ago, for example, gave 43 million to Fyllingstalen Theater, which is part of the foundation of that theater in the long run for children and young people. This makes our people very proud and an incredibly important part of being an attractive employer. Finally, why invest in Sparbank Norway? We are uniquely positioned for further growth. We already have the growth winner in 2025. We will continue to do that. We have not yet been able to establish all of our new geographical locations. So when we get this established, we are uniquely positioned for further growth. We have a good capital situation to support that growth. We will be leading in cost efficiency. We see the contours of significantly lower IT costs. We are still early in the journey in terms of realizing our cost synergies, but we are out. We will achieve this. We have a low risk in the foreign portfolio. I have shown that the bank's operating market loan consists of 25% of our portfolio. We are well diversified. We have a loss history that is low. We will continue with that. We are leaders in digital development. We are in a very exciting development. We are both launching a new credit tool on the personal market. We are working very well with a new credit tool on the business market. And we are ready to modernize our core platform in a very good way. 12 months plus before we reach our goal, but for the first time we see the contours of what we have talked about for perhaps 10 years, a modern core platform, and there we are at a completely different place than we have been historically with Tietoevri, and that pays well for us to continue to be at the forefront when it comes to digital development. Bulder, fantastic journey, we think we will be able to get 100 billion in Bulder at the beginning of 2028. S-Banken was 23 billion when it was bought by DNB. That means that we have built a record-breaking bank, which has significant value both for the bank and obviously for our investors. We are a bank, it is obvious, with significant gift and customer exchange capacity. I hope we can continue with that as we have done in recent years. We believe that it is fully possible to combine high gift distributions and attractive customer exchange. We show that. No one shares more gifts than us, but we also share out customer exchange. The biggest challenge for the volunteers, as I see it, is the capital accumulation that occurs in these savings bank foundations now, where the savings bank foundation shares an all too small share of what they get from the various banks of the social capital share of the surplus. We share everything of the social capital that is in Sparbank Norway, and that means that we have very high gift deductions and attractive customer output. I don't think anyone will invest more in culture than we do. We have a very clear plan on how to work with a strong performance culture as a starting point for strategic trade freedom and a strong position in the capital market. We have invested a lot in the last 12 months and will invest a lot in the next 12 months. We are in a very good place, I think, right now when it comes to fusion, and we will continue to strengthen this team in the coming years. And then we are among the best in single-capital issuance. The total issuance is the last three and last five years in the presentation, and we are going to do everything we can to be in the forefront for the next three and five years. And this is where the transformation program has been involved. Extremely important for us to lay the foundation for us to also, after we get rid of this dustbin for Sparbank Norway, deliver a premium issuance to our investors. So that's what I was going to go through initially. It's still possible to send in questions on this email address. And then I would like to welcome Breda and Hans-Olof. Then we will take the questions that have already come in as well as possible now.

Thank you, Henrik. We have received many different questions, so we can give ourselves the right to answer them. Many of the questions are about the competition in the market. And one of the questions you have received is, where do the framework conditions change as the competition increases? which makes it more demanding for you to reach your goals. Can you elaborate on this and go into the competition picture of income and loans in PM and BM, and geographically? That's a big question.

We'll have to make sure we answer everything. There's no doubt that it's a tough competition. The K2 growth is not all over the world. It's not low, but it's not high either. We have a situation with well overcapitalized standard banks. The IRB banks are also well capitalized. You can see that with us, 18.1. We might soon see a change in the situation for the IRB banks in the personal market, maybe in the fall. We think so. There is a lot of capital that needs to be put into work. There is a tough competition there. Those who say there is poor competition in the bank, I don't think they fully understand the competition situation. It is about what we have always been concerned about. Should you be competitive, you have to have control of your costs, you have to lower your costs. And a little of what we are going to work with and ensure that we realize the cost synergies we have said we will realize. So it's the same things that matter. Should you be competitive in a tougher competition? We just have to continue. AI is going to drag the costs down in the bank, I think. And it's still uncertain. There are many different numbers on how much this will make the Norwegian bank more effective. I agree with Nikolai Tangen. It will give us a completely different foundation to make the bank more effective. That's where we're going to be. That's why I think the competition and the margin pressure is what it will be. through a good value proposition. That's what we feel we have. We have a strong office structure. We have good advice in every aspect. We have some uniqueness there, such as Spare Bank, among other things, and the Gave Institute. That makes me quite confident that we have a good value proposition within a competitive situation that will be added. And that's our starting point. So we believe that it will be a tough journey on the internet and also in the future.

Geographically, is there any difference?

I don't think there is a big difference geographically. There is tough competition in Sørlandet, in Vestlandet, in Oslo. We have our biggest engagement in Tromsø now. There is tough competition there as well, maybe a little less. But there is tough competition out there. It's about having a good value proposition, good advisors, and having a competitive cost base. That's what we're working on. We're not going to do what we're doing, but we're fighting for tough competition.

And competition-wise, was there a specific question?

Yes. We have to be careful not to talk too much about the competition situation. But I also feel that on the inside it is tough competition, if not as tough as it is on the outside. I think that is right to say.

To conclude the competition questions, which were several. Can you tell us who you are marking the competition on in the World Championships now? And will you say that something is irrational?

We will. I think we should be very careful. We see a lot of things that we wouldn't want to do. And then there are the big banks that are the toughest competitors for us. There are some geographical differences, of course. Some regional savings banks are tough in different regions, but it's the big Nordic and Norwegian banks that are our the toughest competitors, and those who go back to our starting lists, which we feel are very close.

Hans Olav, can you tell us how much of the growth comes from new market and investment areas?

Our new market areas are early in the construction phase, but what is very fun to see is that we have good growth in both Oslo and Tromsø. areas where we have put on extra resources and expanded our market area. So it's very nice to see. And what we, as always, a little painful period right after a fusion, as we have done in Oslo, is that we are a little painful for departure. But it was very nice to see that it has not been as big as we had feared. And that shows that we have had a very good transition there, and that the people who have changed clothes there are doing just as well now as they did before. So it's very nice to see.

There is very little effect on the new market area. Our balance is at almost 500 billion in loans. We don't see such a strong effect on the loan growth of the new geographies. This is long-term work. The bank is about to become so large that these new offices will not be what determines the loan growth. We have to get the home market to work. We spend a lot of time on that. And it's incredibly exciting to see. The 12-month growth on BM and PM in the home market is very good. That's true.

That's good. On the new market areas, there is also a question, Hans Olav, on how much of the 100 million we have said in investments in new markets has it taken per Q1?

Yes, the 100 million is a year's worth, right? We believe that by the time we are out of the QNH, we are at about half of that pace.

That's good. Let's change the subject. Jan-Erik, manpower adjustment, and it's actually the transformation program. A few questions related to that. Manpower adjustment, can you quantify how much this will do?

We are perhaps a little out of the question. We could probably have waited until the capital market days, and then come to metal and go out with a manpower adjustment program. What we point out here is that we don't see the compliance as an isolated matter. It has to do with the adoption of IAI, it has to do with a number of other factors, it has to do with new credit tools. So now we are going to work together with the employees in a very good way in the future, and then we are going to quantify this either right before the meeting or on our capital market day. So we are in a process where we are now going to look at how we optimally organize ourselves when it comes to compliance. in relation to the future picture we see, and where we are in the middle of the wave, so maybe we can't quantify it today, but it is clear that there is an effect here, and then against that, of course, there is also an investment in a new geography, so it is not certain that the sum of the balance on the bank will go down significantly, but it will be a little different in terms of leverage than what we have seen, to ensure that we use our resources effectively.

Yes. And on the transformation program, can you tell us a little bit about what use cases you see for AI, and how you think AI trends will change what will lead to success for Norwegian banks?

Also a big question. I think I will ask the question differently. It is very difficult to find economic models that are not affected by AI banks. I think that's the mindset we need to have, and that's what we're working on. When we were at Camp Norway, we talked about this. I don't think there's a department in Sparbank Norway that's not going to build agents that contribute to a more efficient everyday life. Whether it's legal, it's communication, it's A and V, as Solav said. Most of the areas are directly affected by AI, of course. So our starting point is not which area, it's talking about what will AI affect your department. So we have hired an accelerator team, which is under IT now, which will facilitate these discussions in all departments in the bank, instead of support. Of course, in addition to the fact that the IT environment will be fast in terms of adopting AI. We have gotten very good at that in the IT environment, but we also have to get the rest of the organization to offensively grasp the possibilities that lie linked to, among other things, Agentisk AI, and there we are still in the starting group. We talk a lot about it internally, use a lot of time in the teaching group, but I think I would say that there is not an area in the bank that will not be affected, and some claim that there is a 20-40% efficiency in Norwegian banks, and I also see that the media, out of the roles I have there, is in a way significantly affected by AI. That's how it will be. Finans og Media kommer til å bli betydelig påtrykket av dette, og der skal vi være godt rigget, og der er vi bare i startgruppen. Gravdigt vanskelig å se hva dette betyr. Et tre måneders perspektiv knyttet til AE gjør jo at ting ser veldig annerledes ut. Ting ser annerledes ut nå enn når vi ble i Sparmanken Norge for 12 måneder siden, og det skal vi ta in over oss på en offensiv måte.

We'll switch tracks again. Hans-Olar, we've got a question about the rent net. And Nibo has come up a bit since the end of the quarter. Can you tell us how this will affect the funding cost in Q2-Q3? And if we can take this out on the customer, or if we want to see still high margin pressure in Q2-Q3? Yes.

It is difficult to say exactly how it will turn out in Q2, because we are only one month into the year, but we have seen a significant move towards new housing, and we have an exposure to new housing at around 100 billion, so of course that will affect us over time if we are not able to take that out in a return on the customer. Now we are not going to forescore anything there, but for the time being we only know that Nibor has gone up. So of course that will push the interest rate in Q2 as well. And then this has a tendency to even out a little over time, and we have to try to see the long picture here.

Good, good. On the interest rate net again. The interest rate net was strong in Prague, it looks like, writes one here. Are there any timing effects here, or funding synergies? Do you think that 13% peace will come out of the year?

We have a very clear expectation that Prague will work up to 13%, and then it may happen a little early that they get that effect in the year. But we are now expecting to see the effects of the funding coming from the company. The average duration in Prague is not as long as in the bank, so therefore we should also see a faster effect than what we would have done in the bank.

That's good. Jan-Erik, what kind of IT costs can be expected from a new core system?

A lot of our new agreement, without going into too much detail on that, with Tieto has been assumed that we will be at Nykjerne. So when we had the negotiations for Sparbank Norway for the next period of partnership that we now have with Tieto, it was assumed that we would be at Nykjerne. So the synergies that Nykjerne will bring are within the synergy target, as we have said, at 425 plus. So we haven't gone out and quantified that. We don't want to do that either, because then we might reveal too much about our agreement with Tieto and Evri. But we are going down to a different cost level on the IT side, after technical discussion, and that represents Nykjerne. And then, when we sat and discussed with Tieto and Evri, we committed ourselves to being in place with Nykjerne before technical discussion. And then it's no secret that there was a slightly larger gap A little more development, because Nykjerne, which Tietoebri had developed, was primarily adapted to smaller banks. It was not a larger bank that had tested out these solutions. So there is a lot more that needs to be done, and that is why we have, together with Tietoebri, We have created a progress plan, as shown on the slide, so that we will not be 100% in place with a new core before the technical version, but we will use some time after the technical version, but in the course of 2027 we will be in place with a new core platform, which is the prerequisite for the reduced IT costs that lie in 4.25.

Yes. Good. We'll take the last question. It goes to Jan-Erik. There are no news on the Sparbank election in the financial market reports, which many might have hoped. Do you have any thoughts on when this might happen?

No, I don't think this will be addressed by the parliament in October. And then it's exciting to see how political leadership in the finance department shows their cards. I am optimistic when it comes to the savings bank election. I believe that more and more people see that it puts the savings sector at stake with the controversial proposals for the savings bank election. I think more and more people, also politically, feel safe. to get a legal explanation related to this EBA problem, which was in the course of a fair Sparbank election. I hope and believe that a Labour Party-led government does not want to give people more bad news, but let them keep good news, which is the customer exchange part of this. So I am optimistic, and we demonstrate that it is fully possible and easy to have a contrasting relationship between customer exchange and gift, if it is a bank that shows that we can do both in a good way. We have never had greater gift deductions than now. 1.5 billion is formidable for a bank of our size, relatively speaking compared to other savings banks, and if it is corrected for size, then it is very, very good. So optimistic, and more important that this lands correctly than how early it lands.

Good answer. That was the last question. We say thank you from Media City in Bergen and wish you all a good day ahead and a good weekend when it comes. Goodbye. Goodbye.