LONDON — BNP Paribas reported Friday a 26% annual jump in net profit for the second quarter of this year, beating market expectations.
The French bank said that net income reached 2.9 billion euros ($3.44 billion) over the three-month period ending June. In comparison, analysts had pointed to a 2.24 billion euro net income, according to Refinitiv.
BNP Paribas said that the latest results benefited from a rebound in business activity, as economies relaxed some Covid-19 lockdown measures.
“There is a pickup in the economy, if you look at the volume of card transactions, of corporate transactions, of digital transactions, they are really up. And so that basically means that volumes are up, credits are up, commissions are up, and all that basically fuels that [performance],” Lars Machenil, chief financial officer of BNP Paribas, told CNBC.
The domestic markets division saw revenues rising by almost 10% from a year ago. On the other hand, the investment banking unit reported almost a 10% fall in revenues.
The French lender justified the drop in investment banking revenues on the fact that its performance a year ago had been exceptionally high.
Speaking to CNBC’s Charlotte Reed, Machenil avoided singling out the unit’s performance in the quarter and said that “At BNP, we look at CIB (Corporate and Institutional Banking) as a whole with all of the services because sometimes there is more demand for one than for the other one.”
“Our overall corporate and institutional banking is steadily increasing,” he said.
Other highlights of the quarter:
Revenues reached 11.8 billion euros, flat from a year ago.
CET 1 ratio, a measure of bank solvency, stood at 12.9% vs. 12.8 in the previous quarter.
Operating expenses were down 2.3% from a year ago.
Additional dividend
BNP Paribas announced its plan to pay out an additional cash dividend of 1.55 euros per share. In May, the bank paid out a dividend of 1.11 euros per share.
Machenil described the latest quarter as “historic” while suggesting that the outlook for the bank this year might be higher than initially expected.
Shares of BNP Paribas are up 21% year-to-date.
