Lender Raiffeisen International has announced profits before taxes of over EUR 1 billion in the first nine months of 2012,  representing an 8.1 percent year-on-year rise. However, net interest income and operating incomes were both down by around 5 percent for the first three quarters of 2012 compared to the same period last year.

Raiffeisen is one of the major players on the Romanian banking market and although individual figures for different countries were not yet released, in Southeastern Europe, which includes Romania, profit before tax remained almost unchanged from 2011 at EUR 261 million.

Raiffeisen International posted a consolidated profit (after tax and non-controlling interests) of EUR 842 million for the first nine months of 2012, which represents an increase of 13 per cent compared to the same period of last year.

“We achieved a pleasing result in the first three quarters despite the weak economic growth in Europe, the measures to improve our capital ratio and the low interest rate environment weighing on our net interest income,” said CEO Herbert Stepic. The Raiffeisen CEO added that “good developments” in some markets, naming Romania and Russia as examples, had helped to counterbalance poorer results in others.

Total assets, as well as general administrative expenses, were both slightly up in the first nine months of 2012. However, the non-performing loans ration increased by 1.4 percentage points to 10.0 percent and the Tier 1 ratio (total risk) increased to 10.7 percent, up by 0.8 percentage points on last year.

Raiffeisen describes the situation in several of its markets as “tense” and expects non-performing loan percentages to rise in Southeastern Europe. Overall for 2012 the banking group expects a stable business volume due to the economic environment and restrictive regulatory requirements.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com