We recorded a net profit of 868 million euros in the third quarter of 2024. Compared to the result for the previous quarter, our total income benefited from several factors, including higher net interest income (despite significantly lower income on inflation-linked bonds), increased insurance revenues supported by commercial actions, and higher net fee and commission income driven by excellent business performance. These items were offset by a decrease in trading & fair value income and the drop in dividend income following its seasonal peak in the second quarter.

Our loan portfolio continued to expand, increasing by 1% quarter-on-quarter and by 5% year-on-year. Customer deposits – excluding volatile, low-margin short-term deposits at KBC Bank’s foreign branches – were up 3% quarter-on-quarter and 5% year-on-year. As regards Belgium, deposits grew by as much as 5% quarter-on-quarter and 8% year-on-year, owing to the successful recuperation of customer funds following the maturity of the Belgian state note issued a year earlier. In fact, thanks to our proactive, multi-phased and multi-product customer offering, the total inflow of core customer money after the state note matured amounted to 6.5 billion euros, outpacing last year’s 5.7-billion-euro outflow to the state note by 0.8 billion euros.

Operational expenses were up in the quarter under review but remained perfectly within our full-year 2024 guidance. Insurance service expenses were higher, partly as a result of the storms and floods in Central Europe, especially Storm Boris. To date, we are helping some 10 000 customers alleviate the impact of the floods caused by this storm. Next to that, we established a donation fund. Loan loss impairment charges, excluding the reserve for geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, were up on the level recorded in the previous quarter, leading to a credit cost ratio of 16 basis points for the first nine months of 2024, substantially below the guidance. Including the reserve for geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties, the credit cost ratio stood at 10 basis points for the first nine months of 2024. In the quarter under review, we also booked a one-off 79-million-euros gain, under ‘share in results of associated companies & joint ventures’.