Jyske Bank A/S Ord

It's the day of the budget in Jyske Bank. The Board of Directors will put a word on the quarterly budget for the first quarter. But first, let's take a look at some headlines. The first quarter offered a surplus of just under 1.3 billion kroner, which is on par with the previous quarter. The earnings expectations for the whole year are still 4.3 to 5.1 billion kroner. And finally, Jyske Bank is announcing that they are starting a stock return program for a value of 0.5 billion kroner. And once again, welcome to the studio, Lars. The result for the first quarter, how do you see it?

Basically, it is in line with what we had as expectations. That is, it is a level. It is actually index 100 compared to the first quarter last year. And it is somewhat as expected, and it is within what we have communicated throughout the year. And there is also no such big loss or anything like that. It is still a solid, solid drive. A single area I think you could benefit more from is the activity level, and we can see that at Gebyr. There has simply been too little activity in the housing markets and other activities, and therefore we are lower on the post than we would have liked to see.

And if we look at the expectations that the stock analysts had for our forecast going up against this forecast, then it is no secret that they were one step higher. What is it especially that we cannot live up to in relation to the expectations of the analysts?

Yes, so we live up to the expectations. We have communicated ourselves, but the analysts have had slightly higher expectations for our results, and that is correct. We are one step below that. And that is, among other things, and most of all, the cost-effectiveness, i.e. the lack of activity. And then there are a few other places where there are some minor deviations in relation to the expectations the analysts have had.

Then we come out with something that the analysts can hopefully look forward to, namely that we start this stock return program at 1.5 billion kroner. What are the thoughts behind that?

We have built up our capital to a very, very solid level over the first few months of the year, and we have spent new capital in January and February, and that makes us stand strong in terms of capital. We were a little less well-capitalized than we usually are right after the purchase of Danske Aktiviteter. And that capital has been built up again, and with these investments we are very, very solid. And it is so natural that we are starting to buy stocks back again, so beyond the extraordinary loan we made in December, and beyond the loan we have made now for 500 million kroner, well, then we report today that we can make a stock purchase of 1.5 billion kroner over the remaining part of the year and right into the new year. And that fits with the policy we talked about throughout the year, namely that we would very much like to be in a situation where we presumably come up with a content exchange every year, and on top of that, within what can be done and is reasonable and still leaves us with a very solid capital position, then we would like to make a return on investment. And that is what we are actually starting on here in 2024, i.e. a content exchange and on top of that a return on investment within what is reasonable. So it's great that we can report that part today.

If we look at the banking market, then things are happening on the interest rates at the moment. What is the reaction of Jyske Bank to that?

We have always reacted, so we have made it more and more attractive to save up on the account. We have also made it easier to save up on the account. Among other things, you can arrange it when you are a customer directly in the mobile bank, so you get a very reasonable rent there. At the same time, we have done things with pricing. also on our other products, and I think collectively we are very attractive. And one of the areas we are also attractive at is housing financing. If you look at the list prices, we are perhaps almost the most attractive, before you take medium-term discounts, which some operate with, but they are a maximum of two years, it is a 30-year loan you take, and if you look at the pure price, then we are also very competitive there. So it is of course on the scene that we are also competitive on that parameter.

In relation to the period we are looking into now, what is on your to-do list?

No, I think the most important thing is that the time we have been through in the economies in general, during and after corona, some experiments of financial policy character, interest rates that have moved quite quickly, everything now looks to be able to land in a somewhat sensible way. In any case, most macroeconomists expect that there will not be a big crash in this landing. Some say that it may not even be a soft landing, that is, it will be soft, but not a landing. We would now like to see this soft landing for us before we say that all risks have been overcome. And can we continue to get through without major errors, without major declines and so on? Then we deliver one of the most important things a bank can deliver, namely stability, which I think we should be proud of and really, really happy about. then we would also like to see that we take an increased share of the quality of business that is possible to take out in the market. So we would like to get our activity level up a bit.

Good. Lars, thank you for your comments this morning. And if you want to read more about our forecast, then just click on the front page of Jyske Bank.