Crédito Agrícole doubles profits to €224.4 million

Crédito Agrícola more than doubled it’s profits in the first nine months of the year to €224.4 million, an increase of 139.3% compared to the same period last year, having exceeded total profits obtained last year. (€144 million)

As was the case for the entire banking sector, Crédit Agrícola benefited from the increases in interest rates. The financial margin — which corresponds to the difference between interest charged on loans and interest paid on deposits — shot up 120% to €573.5 million to September.
Crédit Agrícola “benefited from a context of positive interest rates and from a more rapid increase in interest rates on credit portfolios and financial assets compared with passing on higher interest to depositors, which continued to increase, a trend that is expected to continue to be seen, and which will contribute to a reversal in such higher levels of profitability in the sector”, said Licínio Pina, president of the group in a communiqué.
Bank charges also increased by 10% to €113.9 million, but the technical margin on insurance suffered a fall of 35.3% to €63.8 million.
And on the back of skyrocketing margins on interest, its core banking product increased by 60.2% to €715 million.
The bank, which has 69 branches up and down the country, says it has gained market share both on deposits and loans. Despite a cooling down in the housing sector, its mortgage portfolio enjoyed a slight increase to €12Bn at the end of September on December 2022, which enabled Crédito Agrícola to bolster its market by 0.14 base points to 5.74%. In terms of deposits the share increased 8.06% despite the fall of 2.5% that it registered this year to €19.9Bn.
However, its portfolio of Non-Performing Loans suffered a sharp deterioration with credit defaults increasing by €145 million to €730.5 million, up almost 25% like-for-like.