LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal’s largest listed bank, Millennium bcp, said on Wednesday its nine-month net consolidated profit rose by a larger-than-expected 9.7%, boosted by the domestic business, even as its net interest margin narrowed slightly.
It netted 714 million euros ($775 million), slightly above the average forecast of 699 million euros in an LSEG poll of analysts, as net income at its domestic business rose by 8.8% from a year ago to 606 million euros.
Reflecting the downward trend of ECB rates, its consolidated net interest income, a measure of earnings on loans minus deposit costs, slipped 0.3% to 2.1 billion euros, with more pressure on the Portuguese business.
Its 50%-owned Polish unit, Bank Millennium, reported a net profit of 547 million zlotys ($136.28 million), a 19% increase from a year ago, despite 385 million euros in costs related to its portfolio of Swiss franc-denominated mortgage
loans.
($1 = 0.9210 euros)
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; editing by Andrei Khalip)
