AIB Group plc

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the AIB Group plc third quarter 2026 trading update conference call. At this time all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there will be the question and answer session. To ask a question during the session please press star 1 1 on your telephone keypad. You will hear an automatic message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw a question please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Colin Hunt, CEO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Nadia. Good morning, everyone. And I'm joined today by Kevin Gann, our Group Financial Controller. We'll be taking questions later. I am very pleased that we're announcing another strong performance by AIB and we're now comfortable in raising our guidance for full year 2026. We now expect the NII to be greater than €3.85 billion. Our customer loan book to grow by between 5% and 6% and our customer deposits to grow by between 3% and 4%. New lending growth of 17% was underpinned by good performances right the way across the franchise with strong out turns from corporate and real estate lending, while climate and infrastructure capital had a superb performance, very much delivering on our long standing ambitions in that space. Our costs are ahead by 3%, while we're continuing to guide to a circa 2% outturn for the full year, aided by an ongoing rolling reduction of 3% in our total headcount. Our capital remains strong with our CET1 of 15.7%, not including the 260 basis points of organic capital which the business generated to the end of the third quarter. So overall we are pleased with how the year is unfolding and we are well set for a strong finish to 2026 and to this strategic cycle. We're very much looking forward to announcing our full year results and unveiling our strategy to 2030 in March of next year and with that I will turn the floor over to you for your questions.

Thank you so much. Dear participants, just a quick reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star, one, one. And now we're going to take our first question. And it comes from the line of Dennis McGoldrick from GoodBody. Your line is open, please ask a question.