The eurozone’s largest
lender, Santander, will miss its profits target for fiscal 2010 as
a result of an increase in provisions.
Santander had previously said
it expected full year net profits to be in line with full year
earnings last year of €8.9bn ($12.4bn).
Go deeper with GlobalData
The third quarter was
affected by Bank of Spain’s new regulations for provisions, which
meant a one-off allocation of €693m, resulting in profits of
€6.08bn in the first nine months of 2010, 9.8% lower than in the
same period of 2009.
The bank’s CEO Alfredo Saenz
told analysts Santander had no plans to continue with its
acquisition spree – “nothing expected, nothing on the horizon” –
and said it had penciled in a partial flotation of its UK unit for
the first half of 2011.
The bank’s rapidly expanding
UK unit continued to grow earnings, with third quarter profits up
20% year-on-year at £619m ($984.7m).
Rival BBVA also missed
analyst forecasts and posted third quarter net profit down 17% to
€1.14bn.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataThe Bank of Spain’s tightened
regulations resulted in a one-off hit of €198m for the
quarter.
Of concern to analysts was a
deterioration in BBVA’s loan to deposit ratio from 132% in the
previous quarter to 141%.
