Some banks saw two-digit profit declines in H1, others experienced a rebound against 2009

9 sep 2010 Autor: Ciprian Botea

The decline in banking activity, reflected in the reduction of interest rate revenues, generated two-digit net profit declines for many big banks on the market that were unable to cut spending to match the revenue decline.
Nearly half the big banks posted two-digit profit declines, with only one top-ten player posting a higher net profit in the first six months of the year against the similar period of 2009. The biggest profit decline was recorded by Alpha Bank, which reported a 23.7 million-euro gross profit, nearly 32% lower than in January-June of 2009. The Greeks did not however publish their net profit.
The BCR group, which owns the biggest bank on the Romanian market by assets announced a net profit down by around 19%, to 117 million euros. The profit decline was mainly caused by the rise in the cost of provisions for non-performing loans.
The higher provisions were in fact the main factor-influencing bank results in the first half of the year, with profits mostly declining, despite the rise in operating revenues and the lower operating costs.
On the other hand, Banca Transilvania posted a three times higher net profit in the first half compared with the same time of 2009, 8 million euros.