By Jesús Aguado
MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Bankinter said on Thursday its third-quarter net profit fell 3% from the same period in 2023 due to a slowdown in lending income following some pressure from lower interest rates.
The country’s fifth-biggest bank by market value reported a net profit of 258 million euros ($278 million) in the July to September period, in line with the 259 million euros expected by analysts polled by Reuters.
Spanish banks have benefited from higher costs of loans, carrying floating rates, that are passed on to customers while keeping a lid on rates for savers but recent declines in the Euribor, the benchmark banks use to set the price for mortgage loans, are starting to feed through lending rates.
Against that backdrop, Bankinter started to see a decrease in customer spreads to 2.86% from 3.01% in the previous quarter, as yields on loans declined 8 basis points while deposit costs rose 7 bps.
The bank’s net interest income (NII), earnings on loans minus deposit costs, remained almost flat in the quarter compared to a year ago and reached 568 million euros, slightly below the 573 million euros analysts expected. Against the previous quarter, NII fell 2%.
($1 = 0.9269 euros)
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado; editing by David Latona)
