Earnings Labs

Barclays PLC (BCS)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Sat, Aug 1, 2015

$23.01

-0.39%

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Transcript

John McFarlane

Management

Good morning. This interim result demonstrates that we continue to make the required progress on earnings, capital and leverage. All businesses demonstrated good performance, although the cards business stood out. We also saw the investment bank put an incredible performance, particularly relative to peers. The continued rundown of non-core was a highlight. It’s actually not until one looks back that we can see how far we’ve come, and I’d congratulate the management team in achieving this. Of course, we all understand that this doesn’t take us where we need to be, and therefore there is a great deal yet to do. I have only been in my role for a very short period, so it’d be premature at this point to be absolutely definitive on the way forward. However, before Tushar takes you through the results himself, I’d like to take the opportunity to give you some early impressions that build on my recent shareholder letter and in particular discuss my three priority areas, which are: strategy, value creation and a strong performance culture. So firstly a few observation about strategy. The key principle is that we should focus on core propositions, that are both significant and financially compelling, answering the questions, what are we good at and where are we good at it. In this respect, if I stand back from the group, I see that we derive virtually all of our profits from three major core markets; the U.K., the U.S. and South Africa. Two of these are fully integrated broad scope propositions, the U.K. and South Africa, and the U.S. is a much more focused proposition with two of the businesses represented; Investment Banking and Barclaycard. It’s self-evident that most of our near-term shareholder value therefore, is likely to be delivered from these markets, given the strength…

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Thanks, John, and good morning. So let me take you through the financial highlights from these results. In the first six months of 2015, we’ve increased group adjusted profits before tax by 11% to £3.7 billion, and core PBT improved 10% to £4.2 billion. All our core operating businesses increased profits. You’ll see that we achieved positive jaws at both, the group and core level. Adjusted Core ROE was 11.1%, and this was 12% when you strip out costs to achieve. This is on an average equity base that was £6 billion higher at £47 billion. The IB delivered a strong performance with a double-digit ROE for the half, and above 11% for the second quarter. We continued to make progress with the rundown of Barclays’ non-core. RWAs were down £18.7 billion since the start of the year, and allocated equity reduced by £2.7 billion to £8.3 billion. We’ve made further progress on resolving legacy issues in H1, while also improving our capital ratios. Despite the conduct provisions, we increased our fully loaded CET-1 ratio to 11.1%, and the leverage ratio reached 4.1%, exceeding our 2016 targets 18 months early. We continued to implement our cost reduction programs and reduced total operating expenses by 7% and core costs by 3%. Even after the substantial cost reductions we delivered in 2014, we anticipate further savings coming through in the remainder of 2015, to achieve our £16.3 billion guidance. And that’s despite headwinds from the U.S. dollar and the increase in the U.K. bank levy. Now let me take you through our summary financials. I’ll begin with a quick overview of the H1 performance, and then I’ll focus more on Q2, as I drill down into the core businesses and non-core. 11% increase in adjusted profit equates to a 25% increase in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first telephone question is from Andrew Coombs of Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Andrew Coombs

Analyst

Good morning. Perhaps I could open with a couple of questions on the Investment Bank and strategy going forward. Firstly, just looking at the Q2 revenue trends. Obviously a good result within [indiscernible] and particularly macro, but the equities result was quite weak, especially when you compare it to peers. You draw out the derivatives and the cash business, but perhaps you could elaborate there, please. And in terms of the future strategy. Obviously you’ve seen another sharp reduction in RWAs in the Investment Bank, down £8 billion to £115 billion. So you’re now running below the £120 billion target. Obviously you have got the trading book review coming up, but you talk about making the Investment Bank a more focused proposition which uses less capital. So where do you see that RWA number moving to over time and would you expect it to be less than 30% of the group RWAs? And I guess, an add-on to that would be, in particular, which products do you plan to reduce further, and instead where do you plan to put the incremental investment within the division? Thank you.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Thanks Andrew. It’s Tushar here. Why don’t I take the questions in the order in which you posed them. So Q2 revenue trends in the Investment Bank. Yes, we’re very pleased with the strong performance in macro. I think in macro, that business has gone through substantial restructuring where we’ve taken an awful lot of capital away from that business and reduced its cost allocation as well. And I think you’re beginning to see a steady-state performance coming through in macro. And what’s really pleasing is that when the environment is good for that business, we’re getting more than our fair share of income, both in currencies and in rates products. So we’re very, very pleased with that performance. I think probably there is a little bit of comparisons from previous years when you’re seeing the restructuring taking place that makes it a little bit cloudy. But nonetheless, we’re very pleased with the work that team have done there. Equities. I called out that, it’s probably - it’s very hard to quantify. But there is probably a little bit of dark pools overhang that we’re still experiencing in the U.S. What is pleasing though is that our revenues have held up pretty well. We had a really strong second quarter last year. It’s probably one of our - I haven’t gone back and checked every single quarter, but it was one of our best ever quarters I think in equities, so relatively tough comparison. But revenue for this quarter presses another sort of point held up well relative to Q1. The final thing I’d say on this, Andrew, is we’re as much focused on returns and profits as we are on revenues. And really what’s very pleasing for us to see the profit improvement of 35% and particularly returns than…

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Chintan Joshi of Nomura. Please go ahead.

Chintan Joshi

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, Tushar. Good morning, John. I have two questions. One again on the Investment Bank, and one on costs. On the Investment Bank, if I assume 60/40 seasonality, last year’s levy, 35% tax rate, some amount of non-controlling interest, other equity interest deductions, I get about a 7% return on a 12% regulatory capital requirement, which means it’s a lower number on tangible equity. Tushar, you’ve talked in the past about deferred comp tailwinds, litigation headwinds which will go away. Even if I give you credit, I’m talking about maybe a 8% to 9% ROTE, which still feels like - I can see that you’re pulling the cost lever, but really you don’t want to expect revenue improvements beyond market trends, which means the capital lever needs pulling and you are talking about it, which makes the £120 billion target difficult to kind of put into our models and see the group still delivering - see the IB delivering above cost of equity. Just a little bit more on that would be helpful. What levers - how much levers - how much of the capital lever can you pull? Can we expect this RWA number to go down at least, even if you don’t want to give us a hard number? The second one is on costs. If I annualize the current core cost run rate, add the levy, I get about £14.5 billion. The question is where will group costs - sorry, £14.8 billion. Where will group costs land up being when we think about 2017, i.e. in non-core, currently you’ve got a quarterly cost run rate of, let’s call it £230 million. As £57 billion of RWAs go to £20 billion, should that cost number go down in line by 2017? What kind of headwinds should we think in terms of your group cost target? Thank you.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Thanks Chintan. I’ll take the questions in the order you posed them. First on the IB and then on costs. I think both of them you were talking me through your Excel spreadsheet, so I’ll refrain from giving you too much guidance on that. But I’ll certainly talk to you in principals. You are definitely right to point out seasonality in the IB. We had a very decent first half. You are right to point out that second half will be more difficult, and therefore you shouldn’t expect the current ROE to just extrapolate across. That’s exactly correct. How will we get to, if you like, on a fully calendarized basis a double-digit ROE and an ROE above the cost of equity for the Investment Bank? It’s going to be more of the same. So we’re going to continue to take costs down. And the team is doing an absolutely outstanding job on that with costs down 14% in this quarter alone compared to the prior period. Revenues are holding up well. Our franchise is holding up well, where it matters to us, particularly in the United States and in the U.K., the sectors that are important to us. You have seen the Investment Bank consume less RWAs this quarter, and that’s showing that they’re becoming - looking for opportunities and capitalize on opportunities where it’s productive to reduce RWAs and I think you’ll continue to see that trend. It won’t happen every single quarter, and it may not happen even in sequential quarters, but I think the trends that you’re seeing are probably in place and will get better at that over time. Core costs. I think the crux of your question was where do we see group core costs in 2017? Well, I’m not going to give you that guidance. We’ve given you core guidance for 2016, and John has talked to you about a cost income ratio objective in the mid-50s. I’m not sure there is any more specifics we’ll give other than that. But we are reaffirming our sort of more precise guidance around £16.3 billion for this year and £14.5 billion next year, and reminding you that of course, this year we are experiencing a fairly material currency headwind and a material increase in the U.K. levy, both of which we’re looking to absorb. Of course the currency headwind is actually net beneficial to our bottom line. So we’re obviously not complaining about that.

Chintan Joshi

Analyst

Actually I was more after the operating expense run rate we can expect in the non-core division. I’ll try and make my own group cost expectations, but if you’re getting to £20 billion of RWAs by 2017 in the non-core, then the current run rate of £220 million, £230 million operating expenses in non-core, that’s got to come down. Question is, how much would you guide us, or how much would you indicate us that might come down?

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. So you probably remember from my scripted comments that 40% of the current cost base in non-core is in our European retail businesses. They’ll follow the European retail businesses. And then what’s remaining is a combination of sort of derivatives related and other trading related activities, and we’ll look to reduce them down to amounts that don’t have a significant impact on the group before we fold it back in. Why don’t we leave it there, Chintan, and move on to some other questions.

Chintan Joshi

Analyst

Thank you. Yes.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Thanks. Do we have the question please, operator?

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Chris Manners of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Chris Manners

Analyst

Good morning, John. Good morning, Tushar.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Good morning.

Chris Manners

Analyst

Yes. So a couple of topics, if I may. The first one was on the capital ratio. Obviously I think it makes sense doing what you’re doing with the dividend, taking it to a progressive rather than a payout on adjusted earnings, which obviously so higher than your stat earnings. I’m just trying to think about your management buffer, your 150 basis points. Is 12% - you’re really sure about that as an end-state, or could that creep a little bit higher just because if we add the 150 basis points to your 10.6% stack that you’ve put in the slide deck, you’re getting to 12.1% and that’s giving nothing for any capital planning buffer, any other potential add-on. So is that enough? And just also trying to think about your comments you made about keeping a stable capital ratio for the rest of the year, because I guess your non-core is going down, you’ll hopefully make some profits. That would mean that quite a big increase in operational risk. So maybe you could try and size that for us, would be great. And the second one was just on the IB. Obviously very creditable performance there. Nice to see the cost-to-income ratio a lot better. Just trying to think about where you think a steady state cost-to-income ratio for the IB could be? And also RWA is down, revenue is up. That’s good. So how much of that is sort of repricing versus faster balance sheet velocity and volume, and maybe you can callout a bit more granularly on the products, where you’re trying to reinvest? Thanks.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. Thanks Chris. So again, I’ll take them in the order again. So the management buffer on where we see our end-state capital ratio. It is fluid. So sitting here and now today everything that we can see, a 150 basis points above our fully phased-in end-state feels about right. Of course there are a few things that will change over time. We may have countercyclical buffers in or sectoral buffers, that may or may not apply. Also stress testing in the PRA [ph] will evolve over time as well. We’re doing the second year of full and detailed stress-testing, and I think that will be important part of the prudential toolkit and capital planning will need to reflect that. So we’ll give you guidance as we go along, Chris. But I think for now, 150 basis points feels about right. But you’re absolutely right that we’ll keep it under review and may change it over time with current facts and circumstances prevailing. Stable capital ratio between now and year-end is what I would guide to, and there are some headwinds coming. Operational risk capital, do expect to go up at some point. It won’t go up in the third quarter, and I’ll try and give as much advanced notice of that as I can. There are other model changes that we are expecting. These are more regular weight changes that we wouldn’t necessarily callout, but that’s something that we would expect to happen in the third quarter and certainly again in the fourth quarter. And then of course there are - although we’re making good progress on conduct litigation items, there is still a list out there, and we’d like to work through some of them as well. So when you take all of that in the mix, in…

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Tom Rayner of Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Tom Rayner

Analyst

Yes. Good morning everyone. A couple please for me. Just firstly, on the non-core. I think John said in his speech at the beginning that the most capital accretive thing that you could do is speed up the runoff of the non-core and also try and make sure that there is no stranded costs left behind. I just wondered if you could put any numbers to what you think the capital impacts of the additional rundown versus the previous plan might be, because obviously the RWA has come down, but you may be crystallizing I guess, bigger losses in the process by speeding it up. And then on the stranded costs. There is about a £1 billion at the moment sort of annual run-rate in the non-core. 40% of this is the retail businesses. So quite a sizeable amount of costs that could be left behind to be folded back into the core. So I wonder, if you could give us any more color on that? And then, my second question was really on the Investment Bank, because again obviously profitability in the first half looks fairly encouraging, but the second half seasonality when you put the levy is very strong. In the fourth quarter, you tend to be loss-making at the moment sort of at the net level. So I just wondered how much of the - has been incorporated within the plan that you’ve sort of now redefined to capture maybe the RWA inflation from the trading book from operational risk, possibly from IRB floors? And also is there any wiggle room in there if the end-state number does move from 12 to say 13, because there are a couple of issues out there, which fairly realistically could do that? I just wondered if you could comment on that as well, please. Thank you.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes, Tom. So why don’t I try and go through them. Your first question was really around running down the non-core and whether there is going to be any capital impact as a consequence of doing that. It’s just tough to be precise on this. Obviously this is still a two-year plus journey that we are on. I guess all I would say is that, we’re more than happy to make the trade-offs where it’s in the interest of our shareholders to do that. The Spain transaction was a good one, where we took a book value loss, but accreted capital. I think we’d be open-minded, particularly with John’s input now on making the right economic trade-offs. We’re not expecting substantial withdrawals on capital, but those could be same applied to us of course. There the market environment could change and pricing can change. But wherein, the teams have been very disciplined around that. They’ve been able to reduce and then delever the business at good levels. And in two years, we’re in no rush to do that super-fast, we’ll do it at economical levels that are in the best interests of our shareholders and try and retain as much of that capital as we can. Stranded cost is an excellent point. You’re right, about 40% has been European retail. The rest will be for us to deal with. We’re really axed to deal with that obviously. Hopefully you’ve seen us deliver a sort of sequential progressive reduction in the cost base and you’re beginning to see some of the stuff that we are capable of. Again, as John has said, that’s not at all resting on our laurels. We’ve got a lot, lot more to do, and we are firmly focused on ensuring that whatever costs remain with the…

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Michael Helsby of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Michael Helsby

Analyst

Yes. Thanks. Good morning gents. Just two from me then. Firstly, just to push on costs in the Investment Bank. Clearly seasonality will happen. Have you got scope to flex the costs in the second half, Tushar, and can you just give us an update on what you think the group levy might be and how much of that will reside in the Investment Bank? And then for John. John, it was really interesting to hear you put the investment case into context of things for Barclays. Quite rightly you’re not a growth stock. You’re trading at book, so you’re no longer a value stock, although we like to think there is some value in there. But over time you are going to be an income stock. So I was just wondering, as you think about that, what type of payout do you think would classify Barclays as an income stock in your own mind? Thank you.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Thanks Michael. Why don’t I do the costs, and then I’ll hand over to John to talk about dividends. I’m not going to throw out specific cost guidance Michael for the IB, but we do believe we can continue to reduce costs in the IB. We’ve done quite a bit of that already, and we’ll continue to do more. Some of that are just accounting effects will unwind and a lot of its actually genuine structural reduction. In the past, we’ve talked about ways to look at the underlying ROE, because some of these things will unwind over time, things like deferred cost, things like restructuring charges, and what sort of ROE uplift that will give. We think at current levels it’s somewhere between 2 or 3 points. It sort of varies obviously quarter-by-quarter. So that’s stuff we would expect to see come through over time, and then further reductions that are more structural. In terms of the levy, it’s always a little bit dangerous sort of predicting it now, because it’s a calculation that gets done towards the end of the year. But I think, if I’m right in saying, I’m just looking at Catherine [ph] here, consensus is about £600 million for the levy. I think that’s a reasonable place for consensus to be. I think as we get closer into the third quarter, I’ll try and give you a bit more precise guidance. I know it’s hard for you guys to model that one. But for what you have in the models at the moment, it probably feels reasonable. With that John, do you want to cover the…

John McFarlane

Management

Okay. Michael, this is more of a journey than anything else, but the way I think about the dividend is if you add TSR, minimum hurdle is going to be somewhere around a 9% or 10% level strategically. It’s a little higher than that now with our cost of equity being higher, but through taking risk out, we’ll probably bring that down. If you then say 9% or 10% is sort of rough annual through the cycle return that we need to deliver, you’d want a good chunk of that to come from dividend. And I prefer to think of it as a dividend yield with a four in front of the number at least, and get the dividend to that level. And then when you get it to that level, assuming it’s an appropriate yield, then grow dividend at roughly the rate of growth of EPS going forward. And so you then think of a paradigm where you need at least mid-single-digits earnings growth and a dividend yield of 4% or higher, and that should get you to the TSR. Now if you then imply that, you’re probably in the 40% to 60% range anyway of payout, but that’s not likely to be our policy. Our policy is likely to get the dividend to a level where we want to get it to and then grow it, seeing through aberrations in individual years, and then growing at broadly the rate of underlying EPS growth.

Michael Helsby

Analyst

Thank you. Very clear, John. Thanks.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Thanks. We have the next question please, operator?

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Manus Costello of Autonomous. Please go ahead.

Manus Costello

Analyst

Good morning. I have two questions please, one strategic and one more specific. On the strategic point. John, you mentioned at the beginning that you would get everything firing on all cylinders and then take a look at the structure of the group. I wondered if you could comment in particular on how you’re thinking about the Africa business and your ownership of the Africa business, and whether or not you were considering owning less of Africa, more of Africa, how that’s going to feed into the group structure going forward, because obviously it’s not ideal at the moment with the big minority outstanding? And secondly more specifically, you mentioned in the litigation notes, the Plevin ruling, which came out last year and the FCA are commenting on. I wonder Tushar, could you give us some idea of how significant you think that might be in terms of PPI, but also whether or not you think that Plevin ruling might apply beyond just PPI? Is there a risk that we’re looking at conduct charges more broadly from Plevin in the consumer finance area? Thank you.

John McFarlane

Management

Okay. Let me deal with Africa for the moment. When you think about the portfolio, the options that you have available at any point in time can be restrictive. So if you think about what our options are to rebase the portfolio today, they are very limited, and that includes Africa, even if we wanted to, it would not be easy to do that. But to give you some direction on it, if you take the total profit from Africa and compare that with the total profit from South Africa, they’re roughly the same number. And therefore in aggregate, we don’t make really much money outside South Africa. And of course that’s an issue for us. In terms of South Africa itself - and of course we aim to deal with that. In terms of South Africa itself, we would probably be biased to own more than less. We’re allowed to go up to the 74%. You and I both know that the way they’re trading and the way we are trading, that’s not accretive for us at the present time, but things can change. But we’d be biased to really make that more solid core. Our options then over longer period of time could open up and we’ll take it as it comes.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

So I’ll take your second question then, Manus, on Plevin. I’m not - probably not going to answer it to be perfectly honest. You’re right in terms that we included reference to it in our RNS. Obviously these are fluid ongoing discussions with various parties, and while they’re ongoing, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to speculate on the scope and its application. So I’ll leave it there and to the extent we have anything concrete to say about it, we’ll update you. And I know, Manus your team wrote a fairly extensive note on Plevin recently, so I know where you’re coming from. But I probably won’t be able to give you any more color on this call.

Manus Costello

Analyst

All right, fair enough. Thanks for the advertising anyway, Tushar.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Okay. Do we have the next question please, operator?

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Fiona Swaffield of RBC. Please go ahead.

Fiona Swaffield

Analyst

Hi, good morning. I just have two questions. Firstly on group RWAs. You’ve brought the non-core down, but how does that reflect on, I think the number of £400 billion longer term that we were thinking about? The second area is Barclaycard and the revenues obviously helped by currency, but it’s more about the impairments, which are continuing to be very good. Is there a time lag on when impairments might start seeing some seasoning in the U.S.? I don’t know if we could have revenues ex-currency given we’ve got costs that would be helpful for Barclaycard.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. Fiona, why don’t I cover them. So group risk-weighted assets. You’re right to point out, the intention was to run the group at about £400 billion of risk-weighted assets. You’ve got, sort of, all sorts of things going on there. You’ve got some currency effects in there which we’re not going to dwell on quarter-by-quarter, but that makes an impact. And also what we really like to do is the capital that we release out of non-core. We’d really like to grow and redeploy that into places like Barclaycard, into growing our U.K. mortgage book, into growing our Africa business. Of course when John Mahon and Harry Harrison can reduce risk-weighted assets by £5 billion to £10 billion a quarter at least in the first half of this year, there is no way that we would be able to redeploy with that pace into those businesses. They just don’t grow as quickly and you wouldn’t expect us to grow them as quickly. So if I think over time the trend of redeploying that capital productively into those core businesses is what you’ll see, but you will see - it will shrink quicker than it will grow so to speak, and I think that’s playing out at the moment. Barclaycard impairment. No, there is no delayed effect there or sort of delayed transmission affecting impairments. I would guide to a loan loss rate of somewhere around 300 basis points and that’s broadly speaking where we’re running. And you’ve seen impairment pick up a little bit in line with the asset growth, but nothing I’d call out other than - you’ve seen the impairments and income levels. You can see the risk adjusted returns on them actually at pretty healthy levels. But a loan loss rate of about 300 basis points is probably the best way to think about it through the rest of the year. Do we have the next question please?

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Chira Barua of Sanford Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Chira, you there?

Chira Barua

Analyst

Sorry. I have it on mute. Apologies. Just a quick one. Just one question on Visa Europe. If you could - Visa Incorporated has come out and said they would want it resolved by October. I know you are a big shareholder. So if you could give us an update, both in terms of where are you in the process? And secondly, if actually Inc. were to buy out Europe, what would it mean for your merchant expenses, and should we see Barclaycard fees go down a bit?

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. Chira, I know you’d want us to comment on potentially a live M&A situation, which we obviously won’t do, and I can’t tell you whether it’s live or not live. We’re just not going to comment on that. In terms of the impact on our business and merchant acquiring business, again it really depends on whether a transaction gets done, and if it were to get done, what the specifics around it were. So it would be too speculative. There are changes in interchange fees, the caps that have been deployed in the European businesses, and you’re seeing the effects of that come through already. You’ll see it come through for the remainder of this year and then full-year effect next year. You’ve seen us be able to grow the top line, so we can absorb any downward pressure that we’re experiencing on interchange fees and still offset that by volume growth. I think that’s what you’d expect us to be able to do over the course of this year. Could we have the next question, please?

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Martin Leitgeb of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Martin Leitgeb

Analyst

Yes, good morning. Two questions from my side, please. One on capital and one on non-core. And on capital to follow-up on the question earlier, obviously you had a very strong quarter in terms of capital formation, equally the faster rundown of non-core should speed up the trajectory of at least Core Tier-1 capital build in absolute terms. And the announced changes to the dividend policy, at least it seems to give you the optionality to build up capital in absolute terms considerably faster if needed. And I’m just trying to get a better sense in terms of RWA headwinds, if you could help us quantify or at least size where you think the biggest areas of upward pressure would be? Is it the trading book review, is it the flows or elsewhere? And to tie in that question, you mentioned earlier that if there would be RWA inflation, you would try to keep that within the existing capital allocation plan for the IB. Does that mean the £120 billion you targeted earlier would remain £120 going forward, or would that have the potential to grow over time as RWA inflation comes in? And just a very quick one on non-core. Given that roughly half of the exposure there is derivatives, is part of your plan to actively break some of the longer term or longer-dated swaps? So will you have higher breakage cost as a consequence and potentially a slower TNAV progression arising from that? Thank you.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. Thanks Martin. In terms of capital, the headwinds that you sort of referred to are more what I would characterize as Basel IV type headwinds, and I don’t expect them to be happening this year, and possibly not even next year. The near-term headwinds are more what I would say is regular way model updates that we would just have in the pipeline and are working through with our various regulators. Nothing I’d call out specific, but there are some changes that we anticipate that will come through over the next six months. I did mention before that there are some litigation conduct items that we’re still working through as well. I’m not going to forecast on when they’ll happen or how much they’ll be, but we should just be monitoring that as well. And that’s why I think it’s reasonable to assume that we’ll be at around 11% CET-1 for the rest of the year. So I’m not going to give you a specific RWA inflationary headwind, but it’s really a combination of several factors. In terms of the second part to that question, the Investment Bank and its capital allocation. We’ve said all along that any of these headwinds that the Investment Bank plans, we’ll look to absorb and operate within their existing capital allocation after absorbing those levels of inflation, and that continues to remain the case and they’ve successfully done that today. They’ve experienced RWA inflation already and you’ve seen that they’re able to absorb that and reduce their RWAs at the same time. Non-core and derivatives, in terms of are we going to break long-dated swaps and is that going to cost us money? Martin, I’m probably not going to - and I won’t probably ever get into that level of detail. These are transactions that we’ll pursue with market-facing counterparties and it’s important that we negotiate those transactions privately rather than me giving guidance on earnings calls like this as to what our intentions are, or what our capacity or intentions are in terms of net asset value erosion or not. We’ll just do this in the most economical sensible way and look to meet our objectives. We’ve got two years to do this, so we should have plenty of options to pursue that in the most economically rational way. Could we have the next question, please?

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Peter Toeman of HSBC. Please go ahead.

Peter Toeman

Analyst

Good morning, Tushar. I don’t know if you mentioned the revenue productivity in the IB, and when I look to the revenue returns, a unit of RWA lags a long way obviously behind the UBS and Credit Suisse. I just wondered if - obviously this is an area that you’re going to address, but I wondered if you could explain why this difference might arise and again how your - what areas you intend to address?

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. Peter, for us it’s improving our own productivity. Every IB - and perhaps pre-crisis all IBs were quite similar and covered the full waterfront of geographies and products. And I think you’ve seen all IBs, at least some IBs particularly in Europe become more selective and therefore there is a comparisons are just not as relevant. So if you’re highly skewed towards equities, highly skewed towards rates, highly skewed to underwriting, you’re just going to have different efficiency ratios. What we’re focused on is ensuring we get to a double-digit return and we’re going to do that in a most speedy way as we can. So I’m not sure there are any direct read across. Is that relevant, Peter?

Peter Toeman

Analyst

Thanks.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Okay. Can we have just one more question please, operator, and then we should probably wrap up the call?

Operator

Operator

Your final telephone question is from Fahed Kunwar of Redburn. Please go ahead.

Fahed Kunwar

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Just a couple of questions. The first one is, a few of your peers were talking about repricing happening in a few products on the FICC side. So I think repos, OTC or exotic derivatives is happening, and obviously you talked about your lower returning Investment Bank. Are you guys seeing any signs at the moment of potential repricing in the fixed income space? And I can give you the second one now as well if you like?

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes, I do want you to give them both, Fahed.

Fahed Kunwar

Analyst

The second question was, you’ve always talked about a matched maturity in the non-core business. Obviously you’re now running the non-core business down faster than you previously anticipated. What kind of retained funding cost drag should we expect that will be wrapped back into the core business? You’ve seen from a couple of your peers that retained funding cost comes through as well. I guess if you’re running that business down to basically not a lot by 2017 on your maturities, your current funding profile. Do you have an idea what that costs could be? Thanks.

Tushar Morzaria

Management

Yes. So on FICC repricing, there is some - our match book activity is obviously a lot lower than it was previously, and some of the financing businesses have seen a little bit of repricing, both in equities and fixed income. So that’s something we are beginning to see. It’s difficult to know whether that will continue or whether that’s just a slight uptick because of capacity leaving the industry. In terms of repricing of exotic derivatives and things like that, whether that’s relevant business for us these days? We obviously do provide risk management solutions to some of our clients, but it’s very tailored towards our clients these days rather than the more broader offering that we used to have. So probably not as relevant to us. In terms of matched funding in the non-core unit, you’re seeing our wholesale funding generally decline as we deleverage the balance sheet, and I think you’ll continue to see that in our non-core business. So the objective for us is as we fold non-core back into the core, the small rump that will remain. The objective is that you should have very little capital that folds back, but also you should have very little negative P&L for lack of a better word be the funding trade or indeed stranded costs that will fold back as well. And a lot of this funding that was very expensively done matures over this timeframe anyway and amortizes down. So some of that will happen naturally, some of that we will - would maybe look to refinance if necessary.

Fahed Kunwar

Analyst

Okay, thank you.