Finance
Santander Bank Polska expects Erste transaction to close by year-end
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on July 30, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on July 30, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Santander Bank Polska expects its acquisition by Erste Group to close by year-end, with Q2 profits rising 28% and international cooperation set to expand.
GDANSK (Reuters) -Santander Bank Polska, which is being acquired by Austria's Erste Group, reported a 28% rise in second-quarter net profit on Wednesday, helped by higher interest income and lower loss provisions.
Second-quarter profit was 1.02 billion zlotys ($275 million), ahead of the 872 million zlotys forecast in a Reuters poll.
Net interest income for the quarter rose to 3.18 billion zlotys, up from 2.9 billion zlotys a year ago and slightly above analysts' estimate of 3.16 billion zlotys.
Spain's Santander, the bank's parent company, sold a 49% stake in its Polish unit to Erste Group in May for 6.8 billion euros ($7.86 billion), in one of the biggest cross-border deals in Europe in recent years.
The transaction, which cuts Santander's stake to 13%, is expected to close around the end of the year, Santander BP CEO Michal Gajewski said during a press conference.
"A major advantage of this planned change will be international cooperation and the ability to support our clients in new and very promising markets" he added.
The second-quarter results were supported by a sharp decline in provisions for expected credit losses, which dropped to 123.4 million zlotys from 292.1 million zlotys a year earlier.
However, the results were hurt by legal provisions related to its Swiss franc mortgage portfolio, after the bank warned in June that a revised risk estimate would reduce second-quarter pre-tax profit by 697.1 million zlotys.
The legal provisions for such loans totalled 738.8 million zlotys in the quarter.
The company's results also reflected the sale of its 60% stake in Santander Consumer Bank to its parent group in June, which resulted in a loss of 355.6 million zlotys as the unit was reclassified as a discontinued operation.
Gajewski said it was too early to discuss a potential change of name and logo following the takeover by Erste.
Erste said it expects the deal to boost its earnings per share by more than 20%, while Santander projected a net capital gain of around 2 billion euros from the transaction by year-end.
($1 = 3.7035 zlotys)
($1 = 0.8653 euros)
(Reporting by Julia Kotowska; Editing by Sumana Nandy, Tom Hogue, Christian Schmollinger and Sharon Singleton)
Santander Bank Polska reported a net profit of 1.02 billion zlotys ($275 million) for the second quarter, exceeding the forecast of 872 million zlotys.
Erste Group expects the acquisition to boost its earnings per share by more than 20%, while Santander anticipates a net capital gain of around 2 billion euros from the transaction by year-end.
The legal provisions for the Swiss franc mortgage loans totaled 738.8 million zlotys in the quarter, which negatively impacted the bank's results.
Net interest income for the quarter rose to 3.18 billion zlotys, up from 2.9 billion zlotys a year ago, and slightly above analysts' estimate of 3.16 billion zlotys.
Santander BP CEO Michal Gajewski mentioned that it is too early to discuss potential changes to the bank's name and logo following the takeover by Erste.
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