Chief Executive, Paul Thwaite, commented:
“NatWest Group’s strong performance in the first quarter of 2026 reflects our consistent delivery for customers and shareholders. Total income excluding notable items(1) of £4.2 billion and an operating profit of £2.0 billion have both increased compared to Q1 2025, with a Return on Tangible Equity of 18.2% continuing our track record of delivering attractive returns.
Having raised our ambitions in February 2026, we have continued to make good progress against our strategic priorities in Q1 2026. We have started the year with positive momentum, underpinned by healthy customer activity - growing all of our three businesses, expanding our capabilities to meet more of our customers’ needs and further improving productivity as we use AI at scale across the bank.
NatWest Group has a vital role to play in the lives of our customers and in the communities we serve throughout the UK. The strength of our balance sheet, scale of our business and depth of our long-standing relationships mean that we can provide the funding, advice and expertise our 20 million customers need in order to navigate increasing uncertainty and to achieve their goals.”
Strong financial performance
We delivered a strong financial performance in Q1 2026, with attributable profit of £1.4 billion and earnings per share of 17.9 pence, up 15.5% compared with Q1 2025. Return on Tangible Equity (RoTE) of 18.2% drove strong capital generation pre-distributions of 65 basis points in the quarter and further growth in TNAV per share, up 16 pence to 400 pence.
Strong growth in our customer businesses while strengthening and deepening relationships
We made good progress against our strategic objectives and remain well placed to support our customers through the current macroeconomic uncertainty. This reflects our focus on strengthening customer relationships, priority customer segments and deepening customer connections.
- Customer assets and liabilities (CAL) increased by £8.4 billion, or 0.9%, in the quarter and are 5.2% higher than Q1 2025, as we build towards our 2028 annual growth rate target of more than 4%.
- Net loans to customers excluding central items increased by £7.2 billion in the quarter, as we grew our Retail Banking mortgage book and increased Commercial & Institutional balances. In Commercial & Institutional we onboarded 24,000 new startups, 25% higher than Q1 2025, supported by targeted initiatives and an improved onboarding journey, assisted by AI agents.
- Customer deposits excluding central items increased by £3.1 billion with growth in Corporate & Institutions partially offset by expected reductions in Retail Banking and Private Banking & Wealth Management which were impacted by seasonal tax payments.
- Strong lending and deposit growth was partially offset by a £1.8 billion reduction in assets under management and administration (AUMA), impacted by negative market movements. AUM net inflows of £0.9 billion in the quarter were strong, with c.23,000 people investing with us for the first time.
We continue to leverage simplification to drive efficiency
We have generated over £100 million of additional cost savings in the first quarter, and our cost:income ratio (excl. litigation and conduct) of 46.5% improved 2.1 percentage points compared with Q1 2025. This has been driven by ongoing restructuring and increased investment, building on our strong technology foundation and accelerating our use of AI to deliver simpler and better customer experiences in a responsible way. We continued to support our customers with improvements to our digital journeys to meet their needs faster and more effectively.
Active balance sheet management creates capacity for growth to deliver attractive returns
We continued to actively manage lower returning capital to create capacity for redeployment, delivering £2.2 billion of benefits from RWA management actions. Increased capital velocity supports capital generation pre-distributions of 65 basis points in the quarter. Our Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio of 14.3% was c.30 basis points higher than Q4 2025.
We continue to maintain stable and diversified sources of funding with a strong loan:deposit ratio (excl. repos and reverse repos), up 1% in the quarter to 89%, and liquidity position, with an average Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR) of 144%.
Outlook(2)
Based on our latest expectations for interest rates and economic conditions, we now expect income excluding notable items to be at the top end of our previously guided range of £17.2 - 17.6 billion. Except for this strengthened guidance, we reaffirm the outlook provided in our full year 2025 results.
We are confident we will achieve our guidance however we recognise that market conditions are uncertain and we will refine our internal forecasts as the economic position evolves.
(1) Refer to the Non-IFRS financial measures appendix for details of notable items.
(2) The guidance, targets, expectations and trends discussed in this section represent NatWest Group plc management’s current expectations and are subject to change, including as a result of the factors described in the NatWest Group plc Risk Factors in the 2025 Annual Report and Accounts and Form 20-F. All 2026 guidance excludes the expected impact of the forthcoming Evelyn Partners acquisition. These statements constitute forward-looking statements. Refer to Forward-looking statements in this announcement.