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Hellenic Bank posts €40 million profit for the first nine months of 2020

01/12/2020 16:49

Hellenic Bank announced a net profit amounting to €40 million in the nine months of 2020 marking a reduction of 55% compared to profits amounting to €89 million in the respective period of 2020, due to increased provisions to cover credit loss due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the third quarter of 2020 the bank posted a net profit of €22.3 million after a profit of €19.9 million in Q2.
 
The bank’s capital ratio remained relatively unchanged for the first nine months of 2020 with the CET1 ratio amounting to 20.6% and Total Capital Adequacy ratio at 22.51%.
 
Total non-performing exposures recorded a 27% drop year on year and amounted to €2,27 billion, while excluding loans covered by the asset protection scheme NPEs drop to €1.8 billion the bank said. The accounted for 24.5% of total loans while excluding the APS accounted for 17.6%.
 
According to the financial results, the drop in NPEs attributed to non-contractual write downs amounting to €0.6 billion, of which €0.5 billion in Q2 and €0.1 billion in Q3.

Phivos Stasopoulos, the banks Interim Chief Executive Officer said the results “demonstrate the resilience of our business model and the strength of our statement of financial position in the face of significant continued uncertainty.”
 
“With a robust capital adequacy ratio of 22,5% and excess liquidity,  we are extremely well positioned  to support our viable clients and  finance the recovery of the country’s economy,” he added.
 
Impairment losses spiked to €49.7 million for the period of January through September 2020, compared with €11.9 million in the respective period of 2019 with loan impairments due to coronavirus pandemic amounting to €47 million, the bank said. The NPEs provision coverage ratio amounted to 45.9%.
According to the bank, customer deposits amounted to €14.1billion as at 30 September 2020, compared to €14.6 billion in end-2019.
 
In the first nine months of 2020, the bank’s total new lending reached €712,3 million with gross loans amounting to €6.74 billion. The bank said that a total of €2.8 billion of gross loans are subject to a government-induced payment holiday as part of the measures to tackle the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The payment moratorium ends in December.
 
The bank’s net interest income for the nine months of 2020 amounted to €212.2million, down by 7% compared to €227 million for the respective period of 2019 reflecting lower income from performing loans due to lending base rate reduction and lower income from debt securities.
 
Net interest income for Q3 reached €71.7 million remaining relatively unchanged compared with the previous quarter.
 
The bank’s total expenses for the nine months of 2020 amounted to €189.6 million marking a 5% reduction compared with the respective period of last year. Staff costs amounted to €93 million and accounted for 49% of the Group’s total expenses, the bank said.
Furthermore, the cost to income ratio for the period of January to September 2020 accounted to 66.7%