DBS Group Holdings Ltd
SGX:D05
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Q1-2025 Earnings Call
AI Summary
Earnings Call on May 8, 2025
Record Performance: DBS delivered new highs in total income, pretax profit, operating profit, and key fee businesses including wealth management and loan fees.
Assets Under Management: AUM reached a record $432 billion, with robust net new money inflows despite some lumpiness in private banking.
Prudence Amid Uncertainty: The bank increased general provisions by $205 million as a precaution against macroeconomic and geopolitical risks, but stressed actual portfolio credit quality remains strong.
Stable Asset Quality: Non-performing asset ratio remained stable at 1.1%, and allowance coverage rose to 137%.
Dividend and Capital Return: Declared a $0.75 per share quarterly dividend (including $0.15 capital return) and commenced a $3 billion share buyback, with $260 million repurchased so far.
Outlook: Group net interest income is expected to be slightly above last year's level, with NIM slightly below 2.09% exit rate and loan growth guidance at 5-6%. Net profit will be lower due to the global minimum tax.
Resilient Business Model: Management highlighted strong structural growth in wealth, payments, and new trade corridors, with the business well-positioned to manage rate cuts and trade volatility.
DBS reported record highs in total income, pretax profit, operating profit, wealth management fees, loan fees, and treasury sales for the quarter, reflecting strong business momentum across both structural and cyclical drivers.
Asset quality remains solid, with non-performing assets down 3% quarter-on-quarter and the NPL ratio stable at 1.1%. General provisions increased by $205 million as a prudent response to rising macro and geopolitical uncertainties, but management emphasized this was not due to actual portfolio deterioration.
The CET1 ratio improved to 17.4% due to regulatory changes, and the leverage ratio stood at 6.5%. DBS declared a $0.75 per share dividend and began a $3 billion share buyback, repurchasing $260 million so far. The dividend yield is about 7.0% at current prices.
Wealth management and loan fees both hit record levels, with wealth management fees up 35% year-on-year. Assets under management rose to $432 billion. Net new money flows were described as strong, with some lumpiness in private banking but a positive structural growth trend across all wealth segments.
Management highlighted heightened risks from trade tensions, tariffs, and a shift to a multipolar world order. They have stress tested their portfolio for first and second order impacts, particularly on sectors like consumer goods and electronics, but direct exposure to US-China trade is limited. The increase in general provisions reflects this cautious stance.
Loan growth in Q1 was strong, especially from large corporate non-trade deals. Deposit growth also remained robust. Management expects loan growth of 5-6% for the year, though they warned of a possible slowdown in the second half if trade disruptions intensify. If loan demand slows, funds will be redeployed into other high-quality, interest-bearing assets.
The exit NIM for April was 2.09%, with expectations that the full-year NIM will be slightly below this level depending on the number of rate cuts. The bank has hedged about a third of its loan book at fixed rates, which helps limit NIM volatility.
DBS is positioning to benefit from shifts in global trade flows, focusing on intra-Asia, Asia-Middle East, and Asia-Europe corridors. The bank expects growth from inventory financing, alternative currencies, and new supply chain financing opportunities as companies adjust to tariff and trade uncertainties.
[Audio Gap]
And also reached a new high. Assets under management reached a new high of $432 billion with the proportion investments maintained at 56%. Slide 10, commercial book noninterest income. This chart shows the breakdown of the group's noninterest income into 3 components: fee income, markets trading income and the third component commercial book are the noninterest income. The third component largely comprises treasury customer sales for both the wealth segment and the institutional segment. Treasury customer sales are similar in nature to fee income as they are driven by customer demand. In the first quarter of 2025, the entire of $548 million comprised treasury customer sales are in comparative periods of first quarter 2024 and fourth quarter 2024, there were other items of around $100 million each relating to FX gains and property disposal gains, respectively. Excluding such nonrecurring gains, treasury customer sales were up 11% year-on-year and 32% quarter-on-quarter, as you can see from this slide, Slide 11, expenses. Compared to a year ago, expenses rose 6% to $2.21 billion due to higher staff cost from salary increments, increased bonus accruals and the larger headcount. The cost-to-income ratio was stable at $0.37. Expenses fell 8% from the previous quarter, mainly in non-staff expenses due partly to seasonality effects.
Slide 12, nonperforming assets. Asset quality remains resilient. Nonperforming assets fell 3% from the previous quarter to $4.86 billion, driven by lower new MA formation and higher [indiscernible]. The NPL ratio was stable at 1.1%. Slide 13, specific lances. Specific allowances amounted to $111 million or 10 basis points of loans similar to a year ago. The entire specific alone charge was from consumer banking, which have been stable over the last few quarters. Specific allowance from Institutional Banking was largely flat as additional Specific provisions were offset by write-backs which included an upgrade of a large case during the quarter. Specific allowances were about half that of the previous quarter, which had lower than usual write-backs.
Slide 14, general allowances. This quarter, we added $205 million to general allowance results as a prudent measure given the recent escalation in macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. The increase in general allowances is not driven by deterioration in the actual credit performance in our portfolio. As you can see, specific provision to loans was at 10 basis points this quarter. In our methodology, and as at end March total general allowance reserves were $4.16 billion or 100 basis points of loans. General allowance results take into account base scenarios, which are then overlaid with stress scenarios.
GP overlays for [indiscernible] scenario stood at $2.6 billion as at 31st March 2025. Allowance coverage rose to 137%, an increase of 8 percentage points compared to December 2024. After considering collateral, [indiscernible] coverage rose to 230%. Slide 15, capital. The reported CET1 ratio rose 0.4 percentage points from the previous quarter to 17.4%, mainly due to the implementation of revised market risk rules with effect from first January 2025. These rules are known as fundamental review of the trading book which are part of the final Basel III reforms to enhance risk sensitivity of the capital framework for market risk.
[indiscernible], our Pillar 3 disclosure DBS market risk -- risk-weighted assets declined by $5.6 billion due to the rule change contributing to the 0.4 percentage point improvement in CET1. The pro forma ratio on a fully phased-in basis increased 0.1 percentage points to 15.2%. The leverage ratio was 6.5%, more than twice the regulatory minimum of 3%. Slide 16, dividend. The Board declared a total dividend of $0.75 per share for the first quarter, comprising an ordinary dividend of $0.60 and a capital return dividend of $0.15. The capital return dividend is part of the 3-year plan that we announced last quarter to return excess capital to shareholders. Based on yesterday's closing share price, and assuming total dividends are held at $0.75 per quarter, the annualized dividend yield is 7.0%. In addition, we also commenced share buyback under the $3 billion share buyback program during the quarter. So far, we have bought back about $260 million of shares representing around 9% of the program. Slide 17. In summary, we had a strong start to the year. Total income and pretax profit were new highs, driven by broad-based business growth. Our return on equity of 17.3% remained above our medium-term target despite the impact of the global minimum tax.
The recent escalation in trade tensions have heightened macroeconomic risk and market volatility. In response, we have strengthened our GP reserves. We'll stay nimble to capture opportunities while prudently managing risk. And our strong capital and liquidity position provides us with a solid foundation to continue supporting our customers. Thank you for your attention.
I'll now pass you over to Su Shan.
Thanks, [indiscernible]. So let me take my slides and give my comments on our first quarter. As Sok Hui said, we had a strong start. I would say it was a solid quarter. We were firing on all cylinders. We saw record wealth management fees, record loan fees, record treasury sales, record operating profit, record NTBT. And so both our structural growth engines and the cyclical growth engines were working in the first quarter. With that, an ROE at 17.3%. We are well within our guidance of 15% to 17% in spite of the tax and the GP buildout, which I thought was just us being prudent. The GP buildup, we thought, given that we closed our books after the beration day. we should be -- we should exercise some prudence. And given the good first quarter, we thought it was a wise thing to do. And as far as the business side grew, you will see from our loan and deposit volumes that both grew very nicely. The first quarter loan volume was largely driven by the IBG large corporate nontrade loans. It was a solid good quality large corporate deal-driven loan book.
And that's the kind of loans we want to grow. It's franchise driving, it's good ROE, and it deepens relationships long term. And so deposits growth as well was very strong, and that momentum continues. It looks like it's continuing anyway for now. And that's also driven both by consumers bringing back cash from treasury, [indiscernible] dollar, T bills, et cetera, but also driven by the work that we've done to be cognizant of and pricing cognizant of pricing elasticity and consumer flows, right, and also SME flows.
So I think, again, the structural work we've done there seems to be paying off. We had record fees and that was led by both Wealth Management and also by IPG hedging activity. We've seen very volatile markets in the last few months. First quarter was also volatile. April was also volatile. But in this volatility, the opportunities will come from customers potentially having to hedge both the interest rate and the FX volatility, but also by some -- by our traders also doing well because of the volatility, the long ball, as you know. So wealth management fees, as you can see, up 35%. The first quarter, obviously, the markets were strong. Net new money also was running at the pace that we were expecting it to. It was about $3 billion in the first quarter because there was a outflow of about $2-odd billion. But that -- some of that will come back in April. In fact, in April, we are seeing still strong net new money growth for the wealth business. Market trading, as I said, because of the high volatility, it's the highest in the year. I'm comfortable with the asset quality. I think our NPL ratios, as we have guided, remained stable. It's 1.1% NPL ratio and the NPA formation is lower than recent quarters. We've, over the last few years, been pretty circum back on the kind of assets that we bring on to our books as we focus on industries that we know franchises that we are comfortable with, and we've gone deep.
And that speaks at the high loan fee speaks to that sort of a structural change. We've been quite circumspect on SME loans, we've not taken too much risk there. If anything, in some of the emerging markets, we've been very risk aware. We've also been circumspect around the consumer unsecured loan book as well. So the GP reserves, I think it speaks to our prudency given the high uncertainty that we're seeing because of the tariff uncertainty. But I'm comfortable I think the GP allowance that we took and the GP overlay that we have of about $2.6 billion or about 60 basis points of our loan book is more than sufficient. So our total dividend, as Sok Hui said, $0.75 -- $0.60 comes from our current income stream. Capital returns of $0.15 comes from our previous stock of capital that we want to return to shareholders. As long as our dividend -- as long as our ROE stays within our range of 15% to 17%. I'm comfortable that we can continue to deliver this dividend payout. Slide. So let me talk now about the outlook. First, the geopolitics and the markets.
So with liberation Day, we all know this is the potential end of a rules-based world order and multi-naturalism as we used to know it. And so we need to learn to shift to work in a multipolar world. And for us, we looked at how we could crystallize our risk. As I said, we've basically stress tested for different risk scenarios, we need to stay resilient across these different risk scenarios. And so we pick up the best way to crystallize our risks, look at first order risk and second order risk. The first order is which countries will be affected, which sectors will be affected. The second order risk is then the macroeconomic risk parameters that we have to stress test for. That includes trade disruption, drop in GDP, drove its consumption slowdown in trade. This intermediation of current trade flows, et cetera, leading to credit stresses and consumer confidence taking a drop. There's also been a lot of volatility. As I said, in interest rates and FX and some clients and countries looking to diversify their trade currencies and reserve currency assets. And the other trend is obviously shifting trade flows in a multipolar world, some countries, you kind of prepare for trade within -- with the U.S. or China, you might have to have China for China, U.S. for U.S. The good news is the trade outside the U.S. still remains pretty robust, and you you work towards that shift in focus from just selling to the U.S. or the West to really looking at trade flows outside the U.S. Having said that, because of the uncertainty that we saw after April 2, there has been a pause in some of the longer-term investments until this clarity and clients are now looking at a reconfiguration of both the trade flows and their payments and technology step.
Next slide. And so what is the impact on tariff on our business? As I said, we stress test for all scenarios and other than the trade disruption and a global slowdown, we're testing for both a set inflationary environment, a recessionary environment but knowing full well that we have to learn to work in a multipolar environment. We've been stress testing for interest rate uncertainty, interest rate volatility and weaker sentiment all around. And based on the stress test that we have done, actually, the first order stress test we are not so badly affected. There are some industries more affected than others. For example, the consumer goods, discretionary consumer goods, the auto sector, the electronics sector. And we're looking to see what announcements come out on semiconductor and health care pharmaceuticals.
The good news is our direct exposure between China and the U.S. in terms of flows to the U.S. is pretty muted, very limited. So I don't see a lot of impact there. The secondary impact or the second order impact we have been stress testing and that's based on a slowdown in macro growth. for most countries, the slowdown [indiscernible] is between 0.5% to 0.9%. We're also stress testing for a U.S. recession or a U.S. taxation. And in those scenarios, stalationary scenario, whilst you don't have -- you may not have any cuts or you might have 1 cut. In a recessionary environment, you could have anything from 3 to 6 rig cuts, right? And in the multipolar world, actually looking at which corridors will be affected and which countries will be affected, but also the companies that are quite leveraged in the mid-cap and SME sector will also be affected. So what are the opportunities, though, in this multipolar world? Number one is if trade flows and trade supply chain shift actually is good for us because we are looking at new supply chain links, new logistic links and helping to finance potentially more inventory financing and alternative currencies and liquidity solutions. And that speaks to the strength because we have been investing in such payment solutions and alternative currencies of payment flows as well. The new growth corridors in sectors, the structural growth that we're seeing in India continues, that's been some geopolitical noise. But the first quarter, India did very well. We saw a very strong 20-over growth in India. Our investments in large [indiscernible] large bank has made foundation for us to grow both our IPG, our large corporate SME business, but also to grow our CPG business, making use of the growing middle-class population and trying to beef up also our onshore wealth business. We're also seeing good trade flows between Northeast Asia into India, and that speaks to the strength that we have and also the Western MSCs to India, be it for Apple or Boeing, Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, LG, et cetera. So again, as I said, those new growth corridors and sectors when we are seeing structural growth. So as rates come down, and you've all seen the rates go down in the first quarter and in April, the good news is this is mitigated by CASA growth. Our CASA growth was very strong in the first quarter. It continues to be strong in April. And with the high volatility comes more trading opportunities, our GFM colleagues and also corporate client demand for hedging has increased. Okay. Let's go to my last slide, which is the 2025 outlook. As I said before, I feel good that we have done a lot of work creating a strong, resilient business. Our structural growth remains and the structural growth is focusing on high ROE businesses like wealth management, like it, like payments, like GTS and as -- and that shouldn't stay. The cyclicality and the volatility that comes with a slowdown with tariff uncertainty we can deal with. And so the business momentum has remained resilient in April. We have stress tested for different negative scenarios. And our structural growth. Group net interest income, we think will be slightly above last year's level, and that's based on what the market is forecasting, which is 3 rate cuts. As I said, we will see lower NIMs, but this will be offset by balance sheet growth, particularly in CASA volumes. And market trading also will benefit because of the lower funding costs. And if loan demand does drop in the second half -- the second quarter looks okay. But if the second half no demand drops, then there will be other assets that we have, other alternatives, that we can deploy our deposits into, which will be interest-bearing and good ROE. So we continue to look for the commercial book noninterest income to grow at about the mid- to high single digits. We have said that we are committed to keep our cost income ratio to the low 40% or so range, and that still looks okay. SPs, we should maintain 17% to 20%. Whilst it's still too early to see impact, as I said, the first order impact, not too big. Second order impact, we have stress tested. We are ready for it. We've got our GP buffers, and we've got a high GP overlay. And net profits, whilst it will be below 24% because of the global minimum tax I still think the pretax profit could be around last year's level.
So with that, I end the CEO observations.
Thank you, Su Shan. We can now go to questions from the media. [Operator Instructions] We have a question from [indiscernible].
I have 1 follow-up with Sok Hui and a couple of questions for Su Shan. The first one, when Sok Hui talked about special provisions. Did you say that 1 large case that the bank provision for SP. Could you give color on that 1 large case, if I heard you correctly? And for Su Shan, I just wanted to check, you said net new money in the first quarter totaled about SGD 3 billion, correct? And you said that was an outflow, could you clarify or give color a bit more? Second question to Su Shan. You talked about structural growth India. Despite geopolitical noise, were you referring to tariffs? Or were you talking about the Pakistan case that is ongoing?
So [indiscernible], let me take your questions. So you'll see from Slide 13 of the presentation that under the SP line, there was a strong upgrade of $119 million this quarter. You don't see it in previous quarters. Previous quarters had some settlements and recoveries. So this pertains to a large case where it was an NPL case. It's now been resolved. The business has been purchased by another owner, and we are comfortable with the market and we have upgraded from NPL to non-NPL. That is the reason why we are able to release the specific provision that we have set aside previously on this case.
Should I take the other two . And the two, yes. Okay. So China, first, your question on net new money of $3 billion, of which $2 billion was somewhat transitory. The net new money we gave out is the PB business. Whereas the wealth business, obviously, as you know, has 3 different segments. The PB business is quite lumpy. And so the 2 that went up quite a bit of it was because it was a structured loan that we couldn't do. But some of it has come back. And actually, the April net new money growth was very strong. So as I said, you can't judge net new money by the month because the business is quite lumpy at the PB level. But the good news is the structural growth trend remains intact because we have more RMs and we have more clients, and we continue to grow new clients and net new money. But do look at the wealth AUM, right, which is total for treasures, PV and TPC, which is $432 billion. I mean, my message to analysts and the media is there's a lot of focus on PB, but really, the Asia wealth business is structural growth, and that's across all segments and a bank that is able to bank all segments will do well structurally. And because the high end, it's lumpy, it's good, but your returns may not be as good. And there's sometimes a lot of demand for structured loans that you may not be able to do because it's higher risk. The lower end, especially the priority banking, which is, again, it's more organic, it's more diversified. And in a way, it's more sticky if you have a good digital platform to complement your RMs, that's stickier and probably creates better ROE because you've also got a good map of CASA and you've got a good mix of fee type of income. Your other question around India. When I talked about the geopolitics, it was multifold. It was both the news overnight. And it's also what we're seeing around the geopolitics because of the tariff war. But my comments was that the India structural growth story remains intact.
We remain positive on India. Our numbers suggest that the trend is good. because you do have a rising middle class, you have a very digitally engaged population. The India stack -- the India tech stack has enabled us to make both better digital journeys for our customers. and also better decisions around credit. And so we remain optimistic about India's growth prospects.
We have another question from [indiscernible] from [indiscernible].
We might have to come back to you, Ultra because we can't hear you in your room. Let's see whether there's another question. Erica, please go ahead with your question.
She put it into chat. So let's read it out, yes. So the first question. So let me read it out. It says net profit is expected to come in below 2024 levels. How much of that is due to the 15% global minimum tax, and how much is because of the broader macroeconomic impact? So our guidance is that we hope to be able to keep net profit before tax close to last year's level. So the entire sort of impact you're seeing at the net profit after tax line would be due to tax impacts, as I mentioned previously, it's close to $400 million for the full year.
Okay. Let me read out the second question. It is said that funding will be deployed into non-loan assets if loan demand weakens, given the current tariff chaos, how much of a slowdown in loan demand are you expecting the second half year?
Okay. I'll take the loan demand and then maybe, [indiscernible], you can weigh in on the than on the other other assets. So the first quarter was very strong and that will see us true in terms of the good non-trade loan demand. The pipeline actually is good. So second quarter will be -- will continue to be -- will be okay. It's the second half that if this trade war continues and we get to a pretty bad scenario then don't be surprised that these nontrade loans and the deals that people want the corporate wanted to do will be paused, right? That's natural.
And that said, we want to continue to garner more deposits and then deploy them in other kinds of assets.
Yes. Phil will also opine on this.
This is Phil [indiscernible], I'm the Corporate Treasure. So for the non-loan assets that Su Shan was referring to that a couple of [indiscernible] there, obviously, is our deposit base grows. We keep a liquidity buffer at that, and that's what we call the high-quality lived assets, the issue on portfolio and then unproduced the LCR ratio and a salary ration that [indiscernible] about earlier. So that's the natural outcome of growing the deposit. So that's one. The second is for any clients that [indiscernible] the bond markets, we would have no substitutes, and this comes a range of different borrowers, and we also invest in those. And third, within our GM business, we will do certain secured financing transactions. And those, again, very highly collateralized and [indiscernible] policy collateral. So the credit risk [indiscernible] instruments actually lowered the loans. Obviously, our focus will be on growing the customer franchise. And to the extent that a little more happens to be [indiscernible] and you talk about these different therapies assets.
Thanks, Will. So just to remind everybody, that was Philip Fernandez. He's our Corporate Treasurer, also in the room as well. Okay. [indiscernible] from [indiscernible] actually, he's also put his question on chat. So I will read it out. The first question, how does DBS see the most recent strengthening of Asian currencies against the U.S. dollar, such as the Singapore dollar to benefit the business of DBS, namely say, wealth business or the demand of FX services going forward?
Okay. Well, I can take that. The Asian currencies, I think we all saw the NT dollar had a very sharp appreciation on Monday on Monday this week. A lot of the Northeast Asian currencies like the NT dollar, the Korean one, these are non-deliverable forwards and therefore, not easy to hedge I am told that both the life versus the life insurance companies in Taiwan and also the large semiconductor supply chain electronic supply chain.
A lot of these guys -- a lot of these companies have a lot of exposure to U.S. dollar naturally. And so if there's some strength and there's a rush to hedge that does cause volatility on the upside for their local currencies. That said, will these provide opportunities? Yes, they will provide both tailwinds and headwinds, right? The headwinds is if the Sing dollar appreciates, obviously, we also have some non-Zing income. We hedge what we can. But whatever is not hedged, obviously, there will be some translation impact. For the Asian currencies, yes, I think a stronger currency does affect their ability to export. It will affect their cost curves as well. And so the impact will depend on whether you're a net exporter or importer. But in terms of wealth, yes, I mean, obviously, if our -- most of our clients are Asian, so if their own currency is growing, that gives them more purchasing power for for wealth management products.
There's a second question from [indiscernible]. How does DBS see any changes in demand for trade financing among your clients amid the U.S. treat tariffs?
Okay. So the trade financing business, it's very cyclical and it's quite lumpy and it's very seasonal. You've got high seasons like towards the end of the year and towards quarter end. And then it's whether you see -- and that is also the base of pricing, right? So it is a competitive industry. We see a change in trade corridors. I think there will be more trade between, let's say, Asia and the Middle East, Asia and the GCC. The if this trade outside the U.S., do call it [indiscernible], if this totes focus becomes more pronounced in the second half. then I anticipate, hopefully, more trade within Asia, the intra-regional track within Asia and ALSEAN should pick up. as companies look for new markets to market to. So intraregional trade within Asia, between Asia and Europe and Asia and GCC, we should see some new pivots a new corridor growth. And also, we've gone from just in time to just in case, right? And so I think there has been stocking up of inventory. Inventory finance has picked up. OT open account trade has picked up, but documentary trade will be lumpy and price dependent.
So as I said, I think it will be opportunistic and we'll have to -- this is the part of the book that will really be moving around with what we're seeing around the trade corridors and what we see on tariffs.
Okay. Thank you. I think Chanya has a follow-up question. So [indiscernible]?
Yes. So are you -- can you -- for the first, second quarter, are you seeing more well flows given the strength of Sing dollars?
In a word, yes. I mean, we're not seeing -- it's not the strength of the [indiscernible] -- I mean, it's multifactor, right? As I said, the wealth business is structural growth business. And so we are seeing more -- the flows continue. And it's not just because of a strong thing. I mean it's a structural.
I'm asking from the Wealth Hub angle and the Safe Haven and [indiscernible] because I mean so much uncertainties and then Singapore dollars, just similar to the Swiss [indiscernible] have strengthened significantly.
Oh, I see [indiscernible]. Yes. I think you have a point Singapore, both Singapore and Hong Kong actually are seeing very good wealth flows. Hong Kong, we see workflows from Greater China -- from China, particularly in Singapore from probably Southeast Asia and rest of the world. And it's a structural flow.
We have a question from [ Gula ] from the [ Edge ].
Congratulations on your results. I have -- can you hear me?
Yes.
I just want to ask about the GP that you took in the first quarter. And what you said, what Su Shan said about the first order and second order risk impacts. Have you changed your MEB model to take into account these assumptions for the second order impact? And is that why the GP roles? And would it -- will you continue to set aside GP in the next 3 quarters?
Su Shan, I'll take the question. So [indiscernible] our GP methodology, the entire spec, which you see on Slide 14, 4.2 billion. That's a baseline stack where we actually factor in our credit cycle index based on the sector, the country. So that will sort of -- for the baseline will adjust as the macroeconomic variable adjust. On top of that, we overlay with the stress scenarios. So the overlay component is the 1 that has grown by $200 million. The stress scenario would be the $2.6 billion that I mentioned, right? So we actually have a very high stock of overlay GP. And because these are stressed, we don't expect them to manifest in the near term. It's just a prudent measure that we are taking. And based on sort of the economics projections that have come in so far. I would say what we have set aside in the $2.6 billion is actually sufficient. So unless things deteriorate a lot more, we have enough buffers to cushion it.
Okay. And sorry, could I just ask an additional point. So do you have a NIM outlook for this year? Do you have a loan growth and NIM outlook for this year?
Okay. I mean for loan growth, we are still looking at sort of 5%, 6%. It does depend on what happens in the second half. For NIM, we're around 2-point -- our exit NIM was 2.09. So it will be plus/minus a few basis points or minus a few basis points from that, depending on how many rate cuts began. Because, as I said, right, we actually have hedged out about 1/3 of our loan book and in fixed rates. So our impact won't be that great. And our income will also be mitigated by deposit -- increase in deposits, particularly CASA.
Which doesn't carry any [indiscernible] CASA doesn't carry any [indiscernible]. So in terms -- so you -- are you
expecting more rate cuts or -- because the Fed was very uncertain about. I mean they did say they're going to cut rates last night. They just said that they will track the figures for the next few months. [indiscernible] assumption or not.
Yes. Last year, we thought it will be 2 way cuts. Now it looks like it will be whether it's 2 or 3, the NIM wouldn't change by that much because it will all be in the second half of the year. So it doesn't really affect the full year NIM too much. But we're ready for 3.
[Operator Instructions] Okay, Chanya.
Sorry, I just want to make sure I heard you correctly, Su Shan. You said that last question on NIM for 2025. You said exit NIM stood at 2.09 at the end of first quarter. So the full year number could be plus/minus a few basis points. Is that correct?
Yes. Actually, the 2.09 was the April exit NIM. And so depending on how many rate cuts we get, it will be minus a few basis points from that.
Thank you. Anyone else have any other questions? [Operator Instructions]. Okay, Goola. Back to you.
Sorry, so just 1 last question. So will you change your like NIM sensitivity or anything like that from what was announced last year to the analysts?
We are not changing our guidance. I think at the end of last year, we said about 5 basis...
$4 million.
$4 million.
Per basis point.
Yes, per basis point of sensitivity.
So like $4 million to $5 million per basis point.
Same as the previous guidance.
Okay. There's a look to be any other questions. So I think we will wrap up here. The analyst briefing will start at 11:30. So thank you, everyone, for your time.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.