Aktia Q4'25 preview: Not the time for earnings growth yet

Translation: Original published in Finnish on 2/3/2026 at 7:00 am EET.

Aktia Bank will publish its Q4 interim report on Thursday, February 5. We expect the bank's comparable earnings to have decreased from the comparison period due to a contracting net interest income. In the report, our attention will be particularly focused on the development of new sales in asset management, which is a key driver in the company's long-term growth strategy, and on the earnings outlook for the year 2026.

Drop in net interest income continues to weigh on net operating income

We expect the company's net operating income to have been lower in Q4 than in the comparison period, primarily due to a contraction in net interest income. However, the impact of falling interest rates should gradually ease, and we estimate net interest income to turn to a slight increase during early 2026. We expect credit demand to have been more robust among corporate clients at the end of the year, while household appetite for borrowing remains modest, based on published market statistics.

Based on publicly available information, asset management sales, which are important to Aktia, were mixed in Q4. Net redemptions continued from the company's investment funds, but international sales showed a clear pick-up. The continuation of this trend would be very welcome, as the decrease in international capital, in particular, has weighed on the bank's client assets under management in recent years and negatively impacted the accumulation of commission income.

Overall, we expect Aktia's net operating income to have been 74 MEUR in Q4.

One-off costs from the growth program weigh on the margin

We expect Aktia's comparable costs to have grown only moderately year-on-year, mainly driven by general cost inflation. In addition, one-off costs from the ongoing growth program (estimated at 2 MEUR) and a penalty payment from the data protection authority (estimated at 0.5 MEUR) weigh on the reported result. Non-recurring expenses were also recorded in the comparison period. We estimate that impairment losses remained slightly elevated in the latter part of the year compared to the bank's historical average due to the weak situation in the real estate sector.

Our estimate for Q4 comparable EBIT is 24.4 MEUR and for the full year 2025 comparable EBIT is 106.7 MEUR, which is clearly below the previous year (124.5 MEUR) in line with the bank's guidance. However, we expect the reported result to have improved both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter as the Q4’24 margin suffered from a significant write-down of the core banking system.

Eyes on the 2026 outlook and dividend

Due to the stable nature of banking operations, the actual earnings figures should not find any significant surprises, so the 2026 earnings guidance is the most interesting part of the earnings report. Our current estimates anticipate stable revenue development, but investments in IT systems and development will increase the cost level more significantly this year in our estimates. Therefore, we still expect a moderately decreasing comparable EBIT for 2026. However, we would not be overly surprised if the bank were to guide for a stable or moderately growing earnings level, as much depends on the volume development of lending and asset management.

Further, Aktia's profit distribution proposal for 2025 is of interest. The bank's solvency has remained strong, and although the Financial Supervisory Authority slightly raised Aktia's capital requirement at the end of last year, there is still a buffer compared to the targeted level. This enables a robust profit-sharing, and we expect the company to raise its dividend by one cent from the previous year to EUR 0.83, which would mean a payout ratio of around 80%.