Bank of Ireland Group plc

Good morning everyone. I'm Eamonn Hughes, Investor Relations Officer and you're all very welcome to Bank of Ireland's H1 2026 results presentation. You'll shortly hear from our CEO Myles O'Grady and CFO Mark Spain about a performance since the start of the year and then we'll open the floor to questions. So over to you Myles.

Thanks Eamonn and good morning everyone. I'm pleased to report a profit before tax of 960 million, driving EPS growth of 36% and returns of 14.4%. We are meeting or beating all strategic targets, growing loans and deposits and wealth assets under management. All of this supports upgraded guidance for this year and reaffirms a positive outlook to 2028. On slide five, I've summarized our updated three-year strategy. And as a quick reminder, we are driving growth in Ireland, optimizing capital allocation, and investing for the future. All of which drive growth, create operating leverage, and substantially improve returns. Turn to the macro environment. Ireland is a highly attractive market, and we have an unrivaled position as Ireland's national champion bank. Ireland benefits from being an open economy but there are also some risks. And while the team and I remain alert to the uncertain geopolitical backdrop, the Irish economy is resilient. We expect the domestic economy to grow on average of 2-3% out to 2028 and the UK economy is also forecast to grow. Favourable demographics are also very supportive, whether that's growth in population or household wealth. Bank of Ireland's business model is uniquely positioned to both drive and benefit from this backdrop, supporting much needed home building, vital infrastructure investment and financial security and wealth creation for our customers. The strength of the Bank of Ireland franchise is translating into growth in total customer volumes. Put simply, more customers are choosing Bank of Ireland. Deposits, loans and assets under management had a combined growth of 6% and I expect that momentum to continue driving sustainable balance sheet growth and value creation. We see examples of this excellent momentum in H1. In an evolving competitive environment, the Irish loan book grew by 7%. Eamonn Hughes MSc, Chris Mangan, Owen Clifford Turning now to slide 9 and the first of our divisional performances. Supported by Ireland's resilient economy, Retail Ireland continues to perform very strongly. Everyday banking delivered 4% growth in new product opening and customer experience continues to improve, supported by digital investment. This includes our new mobile app, the busiest, most important touchpoint for our customers, bringing greater functionality and improved user experience. Turning to the mortgage business, where we continue to hold a market leading position. The Irish mortgage book grew 6% during H1 and this growth was underpinned by strong pricing and risk discipline. This book growth also offers valuable cross-sell opportunities for life and general insurance. And we continue to innovate. As an example, we rolled out a new trade-down mortgage proposition which will help to improve the supply of second-hand homes in the market. Supported by the annual demand for housing units and the increasing supply of homes, I expect this book to grow by 5% on average over the coming years, a key source of value creation for the group. We are seeing great momentum in our wealth business. AUM grew to a new all-time high of 65.5 billion and that's up 18% supported by net inflows of 1.6 billion. Ireland's strong demographics offer a structural growth opportunity for our two leading brands, Davey Wealth and New Ireland Assurance. Meeting the financial needs of our mass affluent, high net worth and life protection customers is a strategic priority for Bank of Ireland. It is the engine of capitalised fee income growth for the Group and I am pleased that we are so well positioned to meet this important customer need. Turning to slide 12 on our retail UK division continues to perform well. Total income increased by 8%, while the lending book reduced by 2%, margins improved 8 basis points, both of which reflect our discipline strategy, which is focused on optimising returns over volume. Our corporate and commercial business enjoyed a good H1 as Ireland's number one commercial lender. A notable highlight was the 14% increase in Irish lending, a key strategic outcome driving growth in Ireland. And against an uncertain geopolitical backdrop and accelerated international deleveraging, I am pleased to report strengthening asset quality with the MPE ratio falling to 3.8%. This overall outcome is a great example of optimising capital while growing our Irish franchise. During H1, we delivered a number of important product and service enhancements. There are many examples set out on slide 14, all of which point to a relentless focus on investing for the future. I referenced our new mobile app earlier, while Zippe, the industry-led peer-to-peer payments platform, launched in March. We've also introduced payment enhancements in the UK and a new brand platform right with you. This represents our focus on supporting our customers through every step and stage of their financial lives. And there is more to come. As we set out in March, we are investing around 1.5 billion to strengthen the relationship with our customers and strongly position the group in an evolving competitive market. Focus areas include product and service enhancements for consumers and businesses in Ireland, a new UK savings platform, Irish savings and investment account propositions in wealth and insurance, and improving digital capabilities in corporate and commercial. In March, I set out our plan to 2028 to create significant operating leverage of circa 600 basis points. And we've laid the groundwork for this, and the H1 scorecard is positive. Growing income faster than cost has improved the cost-to-income ratio by 0.8%, supported by securing 41 million of cost efficiencies and a reduction in FTE of 2%. And there's more to come. We will continue to transform our operating model, streamline customer processes, and secure more value from our supplier partnerships. I look forward to sharing more progress on this important work over the course of this strategic cycle. Creating that operating leverage is supported by a range of AI-enabled initiatives, some of which are set out on slide 16. We've laid strong enterprise AI foundations and established a scalable AI platform. We are seeing early value being achieved in areas such as easier customer onboarding and KYC, faster software development and reduced contact centre hand-offs as some examples. And we have more to do here. We are working hard on a number of priority AI initiatives that will deliver further value. And alongside this value creation, we continue to invest in new cyber security to address emerging AI frontier model risk. We are two quarters into our 12 quarter strategy. Ireland is a highly attractive market driving quality growth. We have an unrivalled position as Ireland's national champion bank. We've upgraded guidance and I reaffirm our targets to 2028 and continued momentum to 2030. And let me pause here for a moment. Bank of Ireland continues to be a highly capital generative business. This makes it possible for us to grow our balance sheet, invest in our operating model and reward our shareholders. And while the environment continues to evolve, at Bank of Ireland we have a winning strategy and we are executing strongly against it. Thank you. I'll now hand over to Mark.

Thanks Myles and good morning everyone. As Myles said, we've made a strong start to our new strategic cycle. We especially see this in the momentum in our Irish businesses, a growing NII with added resilience and materially higher returns with a statutory ROTI of 14.4%. Today we are upgrading our full year guidance for net interest income, asset quality, ROTI and capital generation. Our performance and our positive outlook underline our conviction on delivering a ROTI of greater than 16% in 2028. Slide 21 sets out our key financial metrics. Total income was up 7%. We retained cost discipline and we had a strong asset quality outturn. Our interim dividend per share is up 56%. This is in line with our new distribution policy and it's a clear indication of confidence in our prospects. Slide 22 focuses on our NII which shows continuing momentum. In the first half, NII grew 2%, with balance sheet growth and structural hedge rollovers more than offsetting the impact of lower rates and planned deleveraging. Interest rate expectations are now higher than when we announced our strategy, and our structural hedge is larger. Reflecting these changes, we now expect NII of around 3.5 billion for 2026, up from 3.4 billion previously. The same factors support an upgraded outlook for 27 and 2028. We now expect net interest income of around 3.75 billion euros and greater than 3.95 billion euros respectively. This revised guidance assumes an ECB rate of 2.5% from the end of this year to end 2028, noting that current rate expectations are higher but volatile. If I stand back, I have spoken at previous results presentations about the drivers of our NII trajectory being Irish balance sheet growth and the structural hedging decisions we have taken. We are seeing these factors play out now, both in terms of our H1 performance and our positive and upgraded outlook. Our loan book grew by 1.5 billion, up 4%. Ireland grew 7% with strong performances in mortgages and commercial lending. In the UK, we continued our focus on value over volume, responding agilely to dynamic market conditions. And plan D leveraging in selected international corporate portfolios has progressed well in the first half. For FY26, we continue to expect around 4% growth in our loan book. Customer deposits continue to grow, with group volumes up 2%. Our Irish everyday banking franchise is the key driver of this growth. This has continued to perform well in an evolving competitive landscape. For the full year, we continue to expect deposit growth of around 3%. Turning to the structural hedge. Average volumes were modestly higher in the first half. Rollovers and additions of swaps were done at an average yield of 2.79%, more than double the rate on maturing yields. This rollover dynamic will continue to be a key driver of NII over this strategic cycle. The average yield for H1 was 2.01%, up 17 basis points year-on-year, while the exit yield was 2.09%. In July, we increased the size of the hedge by €8 billion. This decision enhances our NII resilience. As a result, the sensitivity of our NII to interest rates has reduced by approximately a third. We grew fee income by 6%. This was driven by our market leading wealth and insurance franchises and supported by investment gains in corporate and commercial. I also note the positive impact from valuation items, which we don't budget for. For the full year, we continue to expect total fee income growth of around 4%. Total costs were up 2%, in line with our expectations. The moving parts here are inflation and investment, partly offset by efficiencies and lower restructuring costs. Our efficiency initiatives are delivering, with savings equivalent to around 4% of H1 costs achieved. For the full year, we continue to expect total costs, which includes restructuring of around 2.2 billion, up around 2% from last year's outturn. Notwithstanding the uncertain geopolitical backdrop, our asset quality is strong, with the NPE ratio improving to 2% at end June from 2.2% in December. The impairment charge was 32 million euros, reflecting an excellent performance across our portfolios. Our updated full year cost of risk guidance is mid to high teens basis points. Reflecting a balanced view for H2 in the context of the evolving external environment. This is an improvement on our previous guidance of low to mid 20s basis points. Our business model is highly capital generative, with 135 basis points of organic capital generated in the first half. After taking RWA investment and dividends into account, our CET1 ratio was 15.5%. We have declared a dividend of 39 cents, equivalent to half of our H1 earnings. And we are progressing the 530 million buyback announced in March, with more than 40% now executed. For the full year, we see capital generation of around 270 basis points, up from circa 250 basis points previously. And we expect RWA investment to consume around 25% of this. Our objective remains to operate at around a CET1 guidance of around 14.5%. Slide 30 recaps on our guidance for FY26. At the heart of this is our expectation for statutory ROTI of greater than 14%. This is a meaningful upgrade on our previous guidance of 12.5%. We also expect EPS growth of greater than 35% this year. And looking further ahead, our 26 performance and our positive outlook both enhance our conviction on delivering a ROTI of greater than 16% in 2028. Thank you for your time this morning and we'll now turn to questions.

Thank you Mark. At this time we invite those analysts wishing to ask a question to click on the raise hand button which can be found at the bottom of your screen. When it's your turn you will receive a prompt to be promoted as a panelist. Please accept, wait a moment and once you have been introduced you may unmute yourself, turn your video on and ask your question. We'll just wait a moment now for the queue to form. It looks like our first question comes from Sanjina in UBS. Sanjina, will you unmute your audio, turn on your video and ask your question, please.

Thank you. Good morning. Two questions from me, please. The first, so basically if you could provide more colour on the credit performance in the period and the eight basis points, what it would look like excluding the insurance credit and recoveries and how are you thinking about developments into the second half and next year? And second, if you could talk about some of the customer initiatives in more detail, the launch of ZipPay, how the take up has been the new mobile banking app, what are the changes and what functionalities were missing and have been added and any other examples that basically how you're competing with the new banks. Thank you.

Good morning Sanjana and thank you for those questions. I'll ask Mark to take the credit quality question and I'll cover the significant improvements that we're making to our retail franchise in terms of product services and related technology investments. Firstly, Sanjana, we've committed in the region of 1.5 billion to invest in our business model over the next three years. We're on a relentless path now of delivering great improvements. We saw last year separate instant payments, peer-to-peer payments in quarter one and the communication now of the rollout of our mobile app which we announced yesterday. Microsoft Office Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8 Eamonn Hughes MSc We have more to come. We will be investing in the corporate and commercial space in the context of making it easier for our customers to manage their operational finances. I mentioned the wealth investment but also in the UK a new savings platform out over the strategic cycle. So investments across the breadth of our franchise it's a key pillar of our overall strategy and it supports our outlook out to 28. And Mark on asset quality over to you.

Yeah, thanks Myles. Morning Sanjina. Yeah, we've had a really strong outturn in asset quality in the first half. Sanjina, our NPE ratio at 2%, that's at multi-year lows. If you look at our stage 2 volumes, also down versus December as well. And if I look across our portfolios overall, you know, our customers are in good shape and are weathering MSc, Chris Mangan, Owen Clifford MSc, Chris Mangan, Owen Clifford In the context of the environment that we're in, we've simply for our full year guidance, we've taken that guidance, the full year guidance and applied that to the second half and added that to our first half out turn. That's what leads to the mid to high teens. We think that's a balanced approach in the context of the environment that we're in. But I'd say what we're seeing on the ground is our customers are in really, really good shape. And just specifically on the credit insurance aspect, So the credit insurance, 30 million benefit in the first half in the impairment charge, Sangina. And that's really the mechanics of credit insurance mechanism working out. By that I mean that the bank takes a reduced first loss over time, but the actually underlying credit quality in relation to the insured portfolios is stable relative to where it was in December.

Thank you and would you be able to quantify the recoveries because there's a mention of some recoveries just trying to get the sense of the underlying in the first half.

Yeah exactly so this is separate to the accredited insurance yeah we've had I mean that we have we've had the benefit of recoveries in the first half primarily in our corporate portfolios about 30 million Sanjina and that really reflects I would say Thank you very much. Thanks, Angela.

Our next question comes from Dermot and Davey. Dermot, if you turn your video on, unmute and ask your question.

Good morning. Thanks, David. Good morning, Myles. Good morning, Mark. Two questions, if I may. Firstly, just a very strong activity level in the first half, particularly in Q2. I just wonder you know within that context it's not showing much by way of signs of competition impacting at this point you know if you have any observations of what you're seeing on the ground that that would be very helpful thank you and secondly just around risk-weighted assets you know I guess as we look at outside of kind of normal lending dynamics what are you seeing or what are you thinking about in terms of risk-weighted asset initiatives on SRTs, CRTs and any other model kind of refreshes that you're expecting to come true going forward that'd be helpful thank you.

Good morning, Dermot. I'll ask Mark to take the OWA related question and I'll take the start to the year, Dermot. We've had a very good start to our new strategy. We've hit the ground running. I would characterise as we've created an engine that's firing on all cylinders and generating a very strong performance. and for sure in an evolving competitive backdrop in H1 we have retained our number one position for mortgages, our number one position for wealth. We've seen deposits grow by 3% and of course we remain the largest commercial lender in the marketplace as well. So we're performing very strongly. I should say to you as well that when we think about our performance out over the next three years The biggest source of growth for Bank of Ireland is going to be the overall market growing. And we're very well positioned, whether that's a mortgage market, whether that's the wealth business, we're particularly well positioned for that. And when we set our targets, we assume that our growth is a little less than the overall market growth. So that's a pragmatic view on how competition may evolve. But no real change in H1 in the context of Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes

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Thanks Mark, and anything on any model refreshes that we should be thinking about going through?

No, so Dermot, there's nothing to call there and again the 25% investment in ORWA, that's how I think about it. There's always moving parts under the hood but actually there's nothing material to call out. Great, thank you.

Thanks Dermot. We'll go next to Mike in Autonomous. Mike, if you want to turn your video on and unmute, ask your question.

Morning. Yes, so two questions for me. So firstly, deposit growth obviously recovered in the quarter. It looks like it's about 3% annualized now. I just wanted to ask, you call out the savings and investment account as an opportunity in the presentation. I just wanted to know what you're seeing sort of in terms of competition on the ground now as we've seen some international players coming to the market. and how you see that progressing and particularly around those savings and investment account and the potential opportunity and risks there please. Particularly given obviously a 77% loan to deposit ratio that's a key focus and then just slightly technical point on the hedging that's been put on about I think it was about 8 billion in July has that been done sort of in line with the original hedge has anything been done to the duration there just want to understand a bit more about what you've got on there please.

Good morning Mike. Mark, grab the hedging question and let me take the deposit and the savings and investment account. Firstly, we're very pleased with the performance of our deposit book. Everyday banking balance is up by 3%. I'm very supportive of the savings and investment account and just to put that into context we have a A unique wealth business in the Irish franchise. It's underpinned by two very strong brands, New Ireland and Assurance for Life and Protection and Davey Wealth is Ireland's leading wealth provider. We've seen our AUM grow to all-time high to 65.5 billion. Our strategy of course is to build on that very strong performance and in particular to grow our affluent and our mass affluent wealth business. So in many ways we're entirely aligned with this government initiative. It also offers an opportunity to really deepen and expand our franchise over time. I'm very comfortable, we have more than 4 million customers, we have 2.5 million retail customers and so I want them to have a current account, a deposit account, an investment account and indeed a mortgage over time as well. So I'm comfortable with the economics that will play out as we build this AFFLUENT BUSINESS SAVINGS AND INVESTMENT ACCOUNT

I'm Mark on the hedge. Hi, morning Mike. Yeah, on the hedge and maybe Mike, maybe to link it to an overall theme and one of the themes this morning is our enhanced conviction on achieving returns of greater than 16% in 2028 and sustainability of those returns as well beyond that. And the hedge very much plays into that. So the work we've done in the first half of the year was looking at the performance of our and the behaviours of our Irish deposit base over the last cycle. When we did that work, that supported an increase in the hedge by €8 billion. We've put that on at 2.96%, same duration as the existing hedge, so three and a half years. And I suppose one way of thinking about that is a reflection of our confidence in our deposit base and Myles has obviously spoken to the growth that we've seen and we expect there as well. And just as an output from that as well, obviously our sensitivity to rates reduced by about a third.

Thanks Mike. Our next question comes from Sheil and JPM. Sheil, if you want to turn your video on, unmute and ask your question.

Great, thanks guys. Hopefully you can hear me. Good morning. Two questions from my side please. One follow up on the hedge please. You can see the 8 billion or so hedge balance increase gives you a sort of total hedge balance sitting at around 75 or so. Is there more scope to improve or increase this hedge further when you're thinking about maybe some of the savings accounts that you're holding or do you think you're fully hedged out at this point? Can I just ask with regards to investments, is there anything in the external environment, whether it's the pace of AI change, the pace of fiber developments or anything that may make you reconsider some investments that you're making, either change the quantum of investments through the plan or change the pace of investments through the plan? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts there. Thanks.

Good morning, Sheila. Let me take the investments question first and then Mark go with you on Sheila's head question. Sheila, we've communicated an investment of 1.5 billion over the next three years and of course that spend is captured within our cost target guidance and also within our strategic objective to take our cost to income ratio to the mid-40s. When I look at that overall spend, it's nicely balanced between making sure that we are going after very strong operation resilience backdrop. That's hugely important in the context of Cyber threats in the context of protecting our customers from fraud. The other part of that spend, and I would have called out some of these when talking to Sanjina earlier in her question, it's a broad area of digital investments that are really designed to make sure that we are supporting our customers and their needs for the future. Eamonn Coyle Eamonn Hughes, Mark Joseph Spain, Ciaran Coyle, Thank you very much.

Great morning, Shiel. So on the hedge, you should regard the 8 billion increase, it takes us actually to about 77 billion points in time now. That's the material increase and from here the hedge really will grow in line with deposits. That's the material intervention. and maybe Shield just to add on just because I think probably the dynamic of the hedge and I think you understand this is that that hedge today exiting at 2.09% or just over 2.09% in H1 it's that stock flow dynamic That hedge repricing to market, that's a key driver of our NII expectations and growing to greater than 3.95 billion by 2028, which is obviously within a stone's throw of four. Great.

If I can have one quick follow up. You've also increased the euro bond portfolio in the half. Is there more appetite there as its frauds continue to be attractive? So is there more scope there as well?

Yeah, so we're there thereabouts in line with I'd say the sector at this stage in terms of the split of bonds and cash. But maybe to step back, if I go back 18 months ago, that bond portfolio, that Euro bond portfolio was sub 10 billion. So we've stepped up by almost 15 billion over the last 18 months. That's actually been, I'd say, a well-timed decision in terms of the spreads we've achieved and that which weren't available before that point. And that, again, is supporting our NI development and that positive trajectory out to 2028 and beyond. Great. Thank you.

Super. Thanks, Gilles. Our next question comes from Dennis in Goodbuddy. Dennis, if you want to come on.

Morning Myles and Mark and thank you for taking my questions. I just have one please, if you could maybe give us an update on how you're progressing with the leveraging portfolios and I guess maybe you can give us an indication of when you expect that to be largely completed. Thanks.

Thanks Dennis, good morning Mark, do you want to take that please?

Morning Dennis, so we had 1.8 billion at the end of December last year, 1.2 billion now, that's in US LAF, our corporate GB and US CRE and Dennis, so we're making good progress, that's played out very much, maybe even slightly ahead in terms of the pace in the first half. We've allowed for that in the NII guidance we're giving this morning for this year and also out to 2028. But broadly by the end of 2028, those portfolios are sort of fully run down.

And maybe just one quick follow up, please Mark. So as that rolls off, obviously a little bit quicker than expected. I guess maybe your confidence in that revised cost of risk guidance, obviously you're implying quite a step up in H2 of this year versus the, you know, eight basis points in H1. Maybe your own thoughts on that, please.

Yeah, thanks. So, Dennis, as I said in answer to Sanjina's question earlier, our approach to the balance of this year is very mechanical. It's applying our original guidance for H2 and adding it to H1. We think that's a balanced approach where, you know, we're still early enough in the year. There's a lot going on externally. It's not a reflection from our own portfolios. Our own portfolios, I think you'll see from the results in really, really good shape. And that's what we're seeing on the ground. Thank you. Thanks, Dennis.

Just a reminder if you'd like to ask a question just click on the raise hand function but we'll go to Seamus now from Carrick Hill for the next question.

Hi, thank you guys. Two questions please as well. So I think your staff numbers are down 2% since December, which is running kind of ahead of where you would have suggested before. I think it was about 3% per annum. So that's the first question. So can we kind of expect that to kind of accelerate from here? And secondly is, I suppose like the other Irish banks actually the average cost or the average salary for employees seems to be you know another again six or seven percent on an annualized basis in the first half so how should we think about that when it's up to now they kind of took the 90 000 given the fact that one would have assumed perhaps that it was the older or more mature employees who would have been retiring that's the first question and second question Then just coming back to your NII, I mean you've kind of called it out yourself Mark but like the NII upgrade is great and was kind of expected I suppose but if we think about it then it really only comes from the from the hedge and comes that component we've kind of upgraded today but as if we text out the hedge component of the NII The balance of the NII, the floating rate book, really, we haven't had any growth coming through in that part of the book. So I suppose the question is, would you consider it to be an ultra-conservative position in your 2728 NII guide? Because there's two particular reasons. Obviously, we obviously have volume growth coming through. But secondly, the fact you've raised your ECB deposit rate guidance by 50 basis points, I think, in terms of the relative where we were at the end of when we did the plan. and obviously there's a there's a pass-through rate that it's not going to be 100 on that on that raised guidance so like NI is looked exceptionally conservative in 27 and 28 if we think about the balance of the book xh component and I suppose is that a fair comment thank you

Good morning, Seamus. Thanks a lot. Let me take the first question I'll pass to Mark on NAI and the hedge-related queries. Seamus, if I just position the answer in the context of what's our strategic intent in the context of efficiency, I'm going to play it back into the objective by 2028 to secure a cost-income ratio in the mid-40s. The Headline Drivers for that of course is average income growth of 4% per year out to 28 and average cost growth of around 1%. And within that is a gross cost reduction of 250 million and we've secured 41 million of that in H1. Part of that is The objective is a lower FTE number. I've spoken before about an average reduction of about 3% per year. That's going to be achieved through natural attrition in the main. And in the context of average salaries, one of the reasons why our cost is higher is because we are in an inflationary environment. Eamonn Hughes MSc, Chris Mangan, Owen Clifford to insource many of the capabilities that we would have previously have outsourced. I'm thinking about technology change as an example, but also bringing in highly skilled, augmenting our workforce in the space of cyber protection as one example. But overall, pleased with our performance in terms of keeping costs at 2%. The machine is working hard to create that efficiency, again, in support of that overall objective to secure a cost increment

NII and the hedge piece then. So maybe a couple of things. One of the key things that's part of this results is our Irish loan book and deposit book driving NII and you can see that in the first half. Our Irish loan book growing by 7% annualised basis with strong performances in both mortgages and in commercial and our Irish deposit book driving Eamonn Hughes MSc, Chris Mangan, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Chris Mangan, Owen Clifford So previously our guidance for NII in 2028 was greater than 3.85 billion. We're increasing that today to greater than 3.95 billion. Our prior guidance is based on an ECB rate of 2.25%. We're now assuming 2.5%. So the delta between 3.85 and 3.95 Eamonn Hughes MSc, Chris Mangan, Owen Clifford Thank you.

Super. Thanks, James. Okay, we'll go next to Jordan and Mediobanca. Jordan, if you want to unmute, come on and ask your question.

I had a few issues with the webcam. I had two questions. Firstly on net interest income. Mortgage volume has been very good, still number one player in the Irish mortgage market. But it does look at the sector level like mortgage margins are under a bit more pressure, particularly when you look at them relative to swap rates. There is quite a bit of tightening there. I just wonder maybe for some of the non-bank players in the market whether we're going to start seeing a bit more pressure here, whether there's going to need to be increasing rate height, mortgage rate height. or whether this is sort of a sustainable level. That would be my first question. And then secondly on the savings and investment account. We've had a little bit of colour already. Just be good to know how ready the two platforms across New Ireland and Davie are. We don't know exactly what shape it will take, but when it does go live, are we in a good place or is it going to need quite a long lead time before it's ready?

David Nye Lovely, thanks a lot Jordan. In relation to our mortgage business, we had a really really strong performance and of course we know that the mortgage market offers a structural opportunity to continue to grow our balance sheet. This is a mortgage book that grew 9% last year, it's grown 6% so far this year on an annualised basis. We've managed to achieve that whilst maintaining very strong pricing and risk discipline. That's hugely important to Bank of Ireland. It's part of our DNA and that will continue. And in the context sent to your question as to is there pressure on margins, I don't think so. It's not what we're seeing. As an example, when we think about our pricing strategy for mortgages, We always relate that to our pricing strategy for our deposit book as well. We think about both together. In essence it is the Irish franchise that is funding our mortgage book in Ireland and so we'll always play that off well. We want to ensure we reward deposit holders but also ensure that we're getting the right strong economic returns from our mortgage business. I think we can see that come true in the numbers overall. As a component of net interest income where the asset yield has expanded in H1 versus H1 last year. That's an example of that discipline coming to life. We are working very hard to be ready for the savings and investment account. Absent this government initiative, we were working hard anyway to leverage two very strong brands. Again, in response to an earlier question, we've grown our AUM by 18% to 65.5 billion, an all-time high, and we most certainly want to step into the affluent and mass affluent space. So obviously the timing of this new We'll go next to Guy in BMP. Guy, if you want to come on, ask your question. Hi, morning. Thanks for taking questions.

There's really just a follow-up on the longer-term net interest income guidance, some of the assumptions around that. So you've called out the benefit from short-term rates. You've called out the benefit from what you've done on the hedge already this year. I'm not sure you've called out any sort of change in the reinvestment yield on the hedge in future periods. So if you could just clarify if your assumptions there have changed or not. I think you're using 2.5% previously. And then sort of building on the last question, any changes to how... Thank you for your time.

Yeah, good morning Guy. Let me take the competition question and mark on the NAI longer term factors. I mean Guy, again just to in some ways cover up what I said previously but important to re-emphasise. We've had an excellent start to the year. Our strategy I would describe as being one of momentum on the back of a very strong 2025. That momentum is continuing. Eamonn Hughes MSc Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Eamonn Hughes MSc, Thank you very much. Thank you.

Morning. And just on the reinvestment yield, that is a factor probably a little bit in 2026 in terms of upgrade guidance for 2026. But if I look at the reinvestment yields or the sort of projected sort of seven years sort of swap rates for 27 and 28 today versus where they were back in sort of late February, there's actually no material change. That's not a huge factor in terms of our NII or upgraded NII outlook.

Yes, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I'm sorry, my camera is not working. I have two questions, please. One is on NII. I would like to ask, so the updated guidance assumes 2.5% ECB rate of 2228 and then Could you kindly provide a bit more color on the assumptions on the positive pass-through and volume goals as well, please? That would be my first question. And then my second question would be, and I'm sorry if you mentioned this already and had another results call, if you could kindly provide your thoughts on the potential cash ice under the COVID crisis.

Good morning Borca and let me take the savings and investment category. We've had a couple of questions on this over the course of the morning. I'm very happy to cover it again and then Mark on NII. We are very pleased, we're very supportive of this government initiative to introduce Bank of Ireland BCom CIPD Dip with our ambition to grow our affluent business. Absent that product coming to the market we would have been bringing a product anyway in this space to support mass affluent and affluent customers to protect their long term future and to invest So we're working hard on that. We're waiting to hear the particular terms of that product that is due out from the Irish government later this year. But we'll be ready to bring that product to the market as part of an overall suite of products as Ireland's national champion bank. And Mark on NII?

Yeah, on NII, so Borja just on the ECB rate, so the assumption there is the ECB hikes to 250 in September and then remains at that level over the next Eamonn Hughes, You'll see again from the materials today that our term and related balances are around 12% of our Irish deposit volumes and we see that level being broadly stable over the next two and a bit years.

This concludes today's results presentation. Thank you for your participation this morning. We look forward to engaging with as many of you as possible over the coming weeks. And if you have any questions on these results, please reach out to any of us on the Investors Relations team. That brings the presentation to a conclusion. Thank you. Thanks a lot, guys. Have a good day.