BCP profit falls 59% to €60 million in 9M 2021
The bank has set aside more than €300 million to address legal risks associated with Swiss franc claims in Poland, and €80 million for headcount adjustment costs.
BCP’s profit fell 59.3% to €59.5 million in the first nine months of the year, pressured by the legal risk on loans granted in Swiss francs in Poland, which forced provisions of €313.5 million, and headcount adjustment costs of €87.6 million. The Portuguese bank announced this information on Wednesday in a statement sent to the CMVM. The Portuguese bank made public this information on Wednesday in a statement sent to CMVM.
Despite the sharp drop in net income, the banking activity indicators show a positive evolution between January and September, with net interest income growing 1.3% to €1,168.6 million and net operating income increasing 2.6% to €1,706.4 million. Commission income grew by almost 7%.
Deposits increased 8.5% to €68.3 billion – benefiting from the families’ behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic – and loans to customers grew 4.8% to €56.4 billion.
Operating costs, not considering the effect of specific items, totalled €764.1 million in the first nine months of 2021, showing a 2.7% reduction from the €785.2 million registered in the same period of the previous year.
In the international activity, net income generated a loss of €55.7 million in the first nine months of 2021, showing a significant decrease from the €54.4 million profit posted in the same period of the previous year. In Portugal’s case, net income totalled €115.2 million till the end of September 2021
In terms of balance sheet quality, BCP reports an NPE reduction of €800 million. The NPE ratio as a percentage of the total loan portfolio also showed a favourable performance of 4.9% on September 30, 2021.
According to BCP, there was “general improvement in credit quality indicators”, highlighting the reduction in the cost of risk by 30 basis points to 60 bp.
As for robustness indicators, the estimated Fully-implemented Total capital ratio and Core Equity Tier 1 ratio reached “15.2% and 11.8%, respectively (15.3% and 12.0%, respectively, on a pro forma basis considering the expected impact of the ongoing sale of the Swiss subsidiary).”
