The renewed lockdown measures that went into effect on November 5 in England are expected to weigh heavily on the loan-impairment charges of banks in the United Kingdom during the fourth quarter. The new lockdown signals deteriorating economic conditions for the quarter, which are likely to undo many of the positive earnings updates that banks posted for the third quarter. For example, the five banks with the largest presence in the country—Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, NatWest (National Westminster Bank) and Santander Bank—reported loan-impairment charges of £1.9 billion in the third quarter, substantially lower than the £9.1 billion posted in the second quarter.
Spain’s banking sector is showing encouraging signs and signalling that the worst of the fallout from the coronavirus may well be over. Three of Spain’s biggest banks—BBVA (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria), Banco Sabadell and CaixaBank—posted higher profits than had been expected by forecasters, indicating that loan losses are likely to be lower than initially thought. That said, the banks continue to contain the economic impact of the pandemic and to try to offset the constraints of the prevailing ultra-low-interest-rate environment.
With the coronavirus seriously impacting Germany’s economy, the country’s biggest financial hub will shed a sizeable number of jobs, a recent study found. Helaba Bank expects that there will be 2,000 jobs cut in Frankfurt by the end of 2022, equivalent to a 3-percent decline from pre-pandemic levels. Despite efforts being made by the city to attract bankers from London as the UK finalises its departure from the European Union, Helaba does not expect that it will be enough to compensate for the job losses resulting from the virus. Germany’s two biggest banks, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, have already announced that they will slash around 28,000 jobs globally over the next few years because of the pandemic.
Last month, after the most recent addition of 42 banks, a total of around 100 Italian lenders are now live on the country’s blockchain network, Spunta Banca DLT, which is built on R3’s Corda, a private permissioned blockchain platform that enables businesses to transact directly and in strict privacy with one another using smart contracts. According to the Italian Banking Association (ABI, or Associazione Bancaria Italiana), the project is designed to improve interbank data-transfer and settlement speeds, with 204 million transactions processed on Spunta’s infrastructure since March. The ABI expects this number to surpass 350 million by the end of the year.
Poland’s central bank governor is warning that the country’s banking sector could experience a collective loss in 2021 as banks increase their provisions for bad loans. With the country suffering from a pronounced rebound in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, Governor Adam Glapiński sees further deterioration ahead. “In the following quarters, the downward trend in bank profitability will continue. The main reason weighing on banks’ results will not be lower interest rates, as is commonly said, but rising provisions for expected credit losses,” he confirmed. With the country entering its first recession in nearly three decades, the profits of Polish banks fell during the first half of the year. The silver lining, however, is that the biggest lenders, including PKO (Powszechna Kasa Oszczędności) Bank Polski, Bank Pekao and Santander Bank Polska, all avoided going into the red.
Bulgaria’s banking sector remains resilient in the face of the pandemic, with only modest declines being registered compared to last year. According to the latest data from the central bank, the combined net profit of the sector for the first nine months of 2020 stood at 701.3 million levs (US$419.8 million), which is down from 1.27 billion levs for the same period in 2019. Net operating revenue also remained strong, falling from 3.17 billion levs to 3.11 billion levs across the same January-September periods for the two years, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) stated in its monthly report on the performance of the country’s banks. Gross interest income was trimmed to 2.23 billion levs from 2.30 billion levs, while gross fee and commission income fell to 908.5 million levs from 985.3 million levs in the same nine-month period of 2019. And perhaps most impressive of all, the Bulgarian banking sector’s total assets rose to 119.2 billion levs at the end of September from 111.5 billion levs a year earlier.
In Hungary, three banks recently completed a merger to create the country’s second-largest banking group. State-owned Budapest Bank, MKB Bank and savings group TakarékBank finalised the deal at the end of October, having announced the alliance back in May; it represents a major change in the structure of the Hungarian banking sector under nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has given much support to domestic lenders. The new entity will be called Magyar Bankholding, with the government having a 30.35-percent stake, the owners of MKB Bank 31.96 percent and TakarékBank 37.69 percent.
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Mr. Johan Thijs
KBC Group (Belgium)
**********
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Nordea Bank Abp (Finland)
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KBC Group
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Groupe BPCE
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UBS
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Banque Populaire
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ING
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Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA)
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Nationwide Building Society
>>>EASTERN EUROPE AWARD WINNERS
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Ms. Jelena Galić
AIK Banka (Serbia)
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First Investment Bank (Fibank) (Bulgaria)
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OTP Group
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Sberbank
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VTB Capital
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Belarusbank
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OTP Bank
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PKO Bank Polski
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Tatra banka
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Banka Kombëtare Tregtare (BKT)
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Belarusbank
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DSK Bank
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MONETA Money Bank
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PKO Bank Polski
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Banca Comercială Română (BCR)
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Sberbank
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PrivatBank