• NPL ratio remains at a low level of 2.4%
• Common Equity Tier 1 ratio at 15.5%
• Volume of newly granted sustainable corporate loans up sharply
• Number of securities savings plans grows by a quarter compared to the previous year
• Dividend proposal for 2024 at EUR 3.00 per share

Erste Group Bank AG recorded an operating result of EUR 2.97 billion in the first half of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 10.6%. This reflects a positive development in all business segments and the significantly stronger increase in operating income (+7.0%) than in operating expenses (+3.1%). The cost/income ratio improved accordingly from 47.9% to 46.1%. The common equity tier 1 ratio was 15.5% (December 2023: 15.7%). Both the loan volume (+1.7%) and customer deposits (+3.2%) increased in the first six months. The volume of newly granted sustainable corporate loans doubled year-on-year to 2.1 billion euros. The number of customer securities savings plans grew by 23% to more than 1.3 million compared to June 2023. Erste Group's net profit in the first half of the year amounted to EUR 1.63 billion (H1 2023: EUR 1.49 billion). The Management Board of Erste Group proposes a dividend of EUR 3.00 per share for 2024, thus following the established dividend policy.

“The results for the first half of 2024 confirm the successful path of our banking group in Austria and CEE. Financing the energy transition and digital transformation in Europe requires strong banks that actively drive this development forward together with politicians and businesses. We want to play an even stronger role in this in the future. Our excellent results provide a good basis for this,” explains Peter Bosek, CEO of Erste Group.

“The results we have achieved in the first six months of the year reflect the growth of our main revenue drivers as well as our solid work in risk and cost management. These results and the general environment in our region allow us to raise our forecast for the full year and to propose a dividend of three euros for the current financial year,” explains Stefan Dörfler, CFO of Erste Group.