ING Groep NV Q1 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Raul Sinha - JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division - Analyst : Maybe one follow-up on the whole debate around loan growth, please. The first one is basically around the March sort of growth that you've seen. And I guess the concern might be that there's a lot of one-off type loan growth in March here. What I'm trying to understand is how much of the loan growth in March actually reflected genuine pickup in demand. And I think in this context, I just wanted to flag HSBC, for example, one of the other banks did disclose the monthly sort of demand picked up to almost twice the level of a normal run rate from its global commercial clients. So is that something in line with what you have seen from your clients in March? Are you trying to get a sense of how much of March was actually demand driven versus just sort of push that you've had towards TLTRO?

Question: Raul Sinha - JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division - Analyst : Understood. I've got a second one, if I may, on Poland, actually, given you've very helpfully put the spotlight on that. Obviously, the business seems to be performing really well. But I was wondering what your thoughts are on the structure of how Poland sits within the ING group. Obviously, it's one of the markets that's separately listed. Is that something -- obviously, it trades at a big premium to ING. Is that something that you see is perhaps more relevant for some of your other growth markets or challenger markets, which might be -- adds well to your footprint?

Question: Raul Sinha - JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division - Analyst : The fact that Poland is separately listed, is that something you are -- you also might be looking at in terms of some of your other challenger and growth markets.

Question: Omar Fall - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division - Analyst : Just a couple of questions from me. Sorry, could you give a bit more color on OpEx? In particular, are you ready now to give us some guidance on the potential scale of future restructuring costs? Or should we just assume something in the region of the levels this quarter going forward for a few more periods? Then on Retail Netherlands, can you give a bit more explanation of the NII drop there specifically? It looks like kind of EUR 60 million sequentially, which is quite a big acceleration from previous periods. So just some additional color there would be very useful.

Question: Omar Fall - Barclays Bank PLC, Research Division - Analyst : Understood. Just a quick follow-up on the first question. Could you help us with our modeling just to give us a sense of the NII, revenues or costs? Anything in contribution of the perimeter of announced disposals/restructured businesses? And obviously, Austria and Czech, we can get that data to a certain extent, but for some of the others as well, that would be helpful. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. MAY 06, 2021 / 7:00AM, INGA.AS - Q1 2021 ING Groep NV Earnings Call

Question: Kirishanthan Vijayarajah - HSBC, Research Division - Analyst : Firstly, can I just come back to the Financial Markets lending growth? Are you implying that lever's ready to be deployed again for TLTRO purposes, and hence, your confidence there? Or is it more a case that the volume momentum outside of Financial Markets is going to be sufficient to meet your TLTRO threshold? So in fact, you don't need to sort of pull that Financial Market lever again. So just trying to understand the dynamics there. And then in terms of the new business and client demand that came in at the back end of the quarter in the Wholesale Bank -- outside the Financial Markets in the Wholesale Bank and the extra revenues that should eventually generate, could you just give us a feel for how that splits between net interest income and fees? It sounded like from the discussion earlier that it was mainly an NII thing. But just wanted to clarify if there were kind of ancillary fees we should be kind of penciling in from some of that new business.