A report presented today at the bank’s headquarters in Lisbon notes that its financial margin, which is the difference between interest earned on credit and interest paid on deposits, fell by 10% to 441.9 million euros.
The operation in Portugal generated a profit of 241 million euros, a decline of 10%, “reflecting decreases in interest rates,” stated BPI, owned by the Spanish group Caixabank.
Operations in Africa contributed 33 million euros to BPI’s consolidated results, benefiting from a positive contribution of 43 million euros from Banco de Fomento Angola, while Mozambique’s BCI faced a penalty of 10 million euros due to impairments and other adjustments amounting to 29 million euros.
In the first half of the year, net commissions decreased by 11% to 150 million euros, influenced by an extraordinary effect last year. Excluding this effect, the decline was 1%, clarified the bank’s president, João Pedro Oliveira e Costa.
“Not only did we not increase the tables, but in some areas, we were more aggressive,” he said during the results presentation in Lisbon.
During the same presentation, board member Susana Trigo Cabral highlighted that the most significant reductions were in checking account fees, instant transfers, and also “in the placement of securities, which are more punctual and seasonal operations.”
Due to these variations, banking product fell by 8% to 614 million euros.
Regarding the bank’s financial margin, after a period of higher interest rates, it decreased for the third consecutive quarter, as the credit adjustment was also made with indexes lower than the previous year.
The average quarterly remuneration fell in both credit and deposits for the fourth consecutive quarter, to 3.7% and 0.8% respectively, compared to 4.7% and 1.2%.
In terms of the credit portfolio, it increased by 7% compared to the previous year to 32.4 billion euros, with mortgage lending rising 10% to 16.193 billion euros.
By the end of May, BPI’s credit portfolio represented 12.0% of the total credit portfolio, down from 12.1% at the end of the year, while the share in mortgage hiring was 17.4% for the first five months of the year.
In corporate credit, growth was 5%, with an 8% increase in the credit portfolio of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Deposits increased by 5% over the year to 31.880 billion euros, achieving a market share of 10.6% in May of this year.
Recurring operating expenses grew by 1% to 253 million euros, with increases in personnel costs (126 million euros) and depreciation (33 million euros), and decreases in general administrative expenses (93 million euros).
Overall, this component no longer includes the cost of early retirements and voluntary redundancies, which amounted to 23 million euros last year.
In capital ratios, the CET1 (‘common equity tier 1’) ratio rose sequentially to 14.0%, and the total capital ratio to 17.4%, compared to 13.9% and 17.3% respectively in March.
The gross non-performing loans (‘NPL’) ratio remained at 1.7%.
By the end of March, BPI had an accumulated balance of 70 million euros in unallocated impairments, a figure equivalent to that announced in the previous quarter.
[News updated at 1:10 PM]
