Financial margins of 5 banks at €1.5Bn

The margins of Portugal’s five main banks have never been so healthy at €1.5Bn in the first quarter of 2023.

According to Negócios, growth in margins like-for-like on 2021 was €726.8 million, the equivalent of +89.7% compared to the €810 million obtained by the financial institutions between January and March 2022.
The financial system has also benefited from an increase in European Central Bank interest rates which have had an immediate reflection on loans but not on deposits. Portugal’s financial institutions have dragged their feet on passing on the interest rates to savings accounts which according to data from the Bank of Portugal is well below the European average.
The results of BCP, BPI, CGD, Novobanco and Santander have shown results that have caused the Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to call on the banks to have more awareness.
Public bank CGD (+200%) had the biggest margin which tripled to €478 million, +319 million than a year ago, a growth that almost was worth half of the increased margins of the other banks put together.
Novobanco saw its margin grow 84.5% to €246 million. BPI enjoyed a similar increase of 82.3% from €113 million to €206 million.
BCP, which on Monday posted a consolidated Q1 profit of €215 million, saw its margin grow 60.5% in 2022, from €211.8 to €339.9 million. Santander Totta saw its margin grow 38.1% (+€73.8 million than in Q1 2022).
The increase in margins helped the banks bolster their net results which ended up being around 50% of the profits from their domestic activities, going from €541.7 million to €810.1 million.