Lisbon, Nov. 7, 2024 (Lusa) — Portugal's state-owned bank, Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), recorded profits of €1.369 billion up to September, an increase of 38.7% compared to the same period last year, the public bank announced Thursday.
At a press conference to present the results, the bank's chairman, Paulo Macedo, emphasised CGD paid the state €1.527 billion, including dividends and corporate income tax for 2023 and 2024.
‘We have reason to believe that it's been a good nine months,’ added Paulo Macedo, who noted that CGD's turnover rose by around €7 billionn compared to the same period last year, to €144 billion.
With more modest year-on-year growth, CGD's consolidated net interest income grew by 1.5% to €2.121 billion. In the presentation, financial administrator Paula Geada noted that this growth in net interest income ‘was very much supported by the growth in turnover’.
Commissions totalled €437 million between January and September, an increase of 2.6% also attributable to the increase in turnover.
Overheads fell by 1.1% to €780 million. In a statement published on its website, CGD highlights the ‘’€20 million decrease in staff costs, due to extraordinary effects related to the staff restructuring programme‘’.
In terms of international activity, CGD's contribution to profits was around €150 million, an evolution that was "negatively impacted by exchange rate variations, particularly Angola (€7.5 million). Elsewhere, BNU Macau and BCI Moçambique contributed €49 million and €51 million respectively to the group's profits.
Results from financial operations totalled €120 million, down €44 million from a year ago. This evolution was affected "by the extraordinary effect associated with the extinction of the Pension Fund, worth €80 million, in February 2023.
Without this extraordinary effect, ‘the results of financial operations would have had a positive variation of €35 million’, CGD explained in a statement sent to the market.
In the first nine months of this year, the state-owned bank recorded a ‘reversal of provisions and impairments’ totalling €106 million after making provisions of €510 million last year.
From CGD's point of view, this variation is ‘mainly related to Caixa's activity in Portugal, recognising the better than expected macroeconomic environment’.
The bank's operating results rose to €2.016 billion, up 33.8% on the same period last year.
Customer deposits rose 4.9% compared to December, to €84.5 billion, of which €74.2 billion in domestic activity (up 5.6% in the period).
In Portugal alone, individual deposits totalled €58.134 billion, while corporate deposits totalled €12.588 billion, both up 5.1% from December.
Since the beginning of the year, loans to customers in Portugal have advanced by 2.8% to €46.622 billion, while loans to companies rose by 3.6% to €20.373 billion.
The increase for private individuals was 2.2% to €26.249 billion, with the majority (€25.07 billion) related to home loans.
CGD had 6,227 employees in 512 branches at the end of September, maintaining the number of branches but with 16 fewer employees in net terms compared to the end of December.
As for solvency ratios, the consolidated Non-Performing Loans ratio was 1.59% at the end of September, down from 1.65% in December.
The fully loaded, CET1, Tier 1 and Total ratios stood at 21.0%, 21.0% and 21.3% respectively.
JO/ADB // ADB.
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