Portugal’s five largest banks see H1 profits, branch closures up, staff levels down

The five main banks in Portugal posted aggregate profits of €708.4 million in the first half of the year, with BCP the lowest contributor.

Together, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), Novo Banco, BCP, BPI and Santander Totta posted aggregate profits of €708.4 million.

On Monday, Novo Banco announced profits of €137.7 million for the first six months of the year, an improvement on the consistent losses recorded since its foundation in 2014.

Last week, the remaining four largest banks announced their half-year results.

Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) recorded the highest profit among the five largest banks, with €294 million in the first half, after €249 million in the same period last year.

The second-largest contribution came from BPI, with €183 million in profit, which compares with €43 million in the first six months of 2020.

In fourth place, after Novo Banco’s profits that put it in third place in the table of positive net results, was Santander Portugal, with a profit of €81.4 million in the first half, which compares with €172.9 million obtained in the same period of 2020.

Finally, BCP profited €12.3 million, heavily impacted by losses of €112.7 million in the Polish operation, when it had profited €76 million in the first half of 2020.

In the first six months of 2020, the five largest Portuguese banks had recorded an aggregate loss of €14.4 million, due to the negative results of Novo Banco (555.3 million loss).

Meanwhile, the five largest banks lost 240 branches and 1,474 staff between the first half of 2020 and the same period this year, according to Lusa accounts based on data released by the institutions.

In the first half of this year, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), BCP, BPI, Santander Portugal and Novo Banco lost 240 branches in Portugal compared to the same period in 2020.

At the end of June last year, the banks together had 2,343 branches, seeing that number reduced in a year to 2,103.

Halfway through this year, BPI had 386 branches, CGD had 543, Santander Portugal had 368, Novo Banco had 348 and BCP had 458.

At the end of June 2020, the five largest institutions had a total of 29,701 employees, and a year later this number fell to 28,227, confirming the trend of recent years.

At the end of the first half of the year, in Portugal, CGD had 6,515 employees, Santander Portugal had 5,765, BCP had 6,937, BPI had 4,562 and Novo Banco had 4,448.