BRD makes 40m-euro profit in Q2

BRD, the second-largest bank on the Romanian market, ended the second quarter of the year with a 168 million-RON (40.3 million-euro) net profit, down 22% against the similar period of last year and 15% against the first quarter of this year.

The result reflects a still high cost of loan-loss provisions: 304 million RON in Q2, 47% more than in the year-ago period. However, BRD saw three quarters of a steady decline for this cost starting in Q4 of 2009.

In the first half the bank reported a 367 million-RON (88.5 million-euro) net profit, down 13.7% on the similar period of last year, in the context where loan-loss provisions were 54% higher, to 628 million RON (151 million euros). The bank had overdue and doubtful loans worth 1.86 billion RON (426 million euros at the June 30th exchange rate), accounting for 5.4% of the portfolio.

The overall volume of provisions amounted to 1.8 billion RON, up 27.5% against the end-of-the-year level.

Guy Poupet, BRD chairman, says the bank’s activity is affected by the lingering economic crisis, but the efficiency of operations has been supported by cost control measures.