Bank of Ireland Group plc (BKRIF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-24 21:33:46 ET

Bank of Ireland Group plc (BKRIF)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

February 24, 2025 03:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Myles O’Grady - Group Chief Executive

Mark Spain - Chief Financial Officer

Eamonn Hughes - IR

Conference Call Participants

Sanjena Dadawala - UBS

Diarmaid Sheridan - Davy

Benjamin Toms - RBC

Grace Dargan - Barclays

Chris Cant - Autonomous

Sheel Shah - JPMorgan

Borja Ramirez - Citi

Seamus Murphy - Carraighill

Robert Noble - Deutsche Bank

Denis McGoldrick - Goodbody

Andrew Stimpson - KBW

Aman Rakkar - Barclays

Presentation

Operator

Myles O’Grady

Thank you, Eamonn, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call today. Before we talk through the results in detail, our opening slide presents our positive outlook for the medium-term. Bank of Ireland continues to be highly capital generative. Supported by a growing Irish economy and our market position, I expect loan and deposit book growth and wealth AUM growth while retaining our proven cost discipline. Seizing this opportunity translates into a return on tangible equity of greater than 17% by 2027, and I'll come back to these building blocks shortly.

Successfully executing our strategy is driving this performance. In terms of stronger relationships, we're growing customer numbers, while at the same time reaching an all-time high with our Net Promoter Score, an excellent benchmark for customer satisfaction. We're making our business simpler with more active digital users and materially lower customer complaints. And sustainable lending is up 32%, broadly achieving our EUR15 billion target one year early.

2024 was another year of strong strategy execution. We've delivered positive business momentum and financial performance. The highlights include growth in loans and deposits and a significant increase in assets under management, another very good year of profitability and efficiency and strong capital generation and returns. This supports EUR1.2 billion total distribution, up 6% year-on-year, the group's largest ever.

Our business model is outperforming our peer group, reporting higher capital generation and total shareholder returns than the peer average. This is underlined by cumulative distributions for 2023 and 2024 of EUR2.4 billion. This is equivalent to more than a quarter of our market cap. The Irish economy is growing and continues to outperform the euro area. Private sector credit and deposits are strong, and the trajectory for housing completions underpinned by Ireland's demographic advantages will grow the mortgage market. All of this presents a tangible commercial opportunity.

It is clear, of course, that the world is in a period of heightened uncertainty and evolving international trade policies add complexity. We monitor this closely. Ireland is on track to run a fiscal surplus for a fourth successive year. The national debt is also tracking down at 41% compared to 88% for the euro area. These factors put Ireland in a good place today and position it well for any future challenges that may arise. At Bank of Ireland, our focus is on growing our business with this growing economy....

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