Banking
ING reports 1 billion euros in Q1 profit, fewer bad loans
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – ING Groep NV, the largest Dutch bank, reported better- than-expected first quarter net profit of 1.01 billion euros on Thursday, saying it had good fee income and fewer bad loans than a year ago at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, Chief Executive Steven van Rijswijk said that with much of Europe still in lockdown, the pandemic was still the main threat to customers’ outlook.
“We remain cautious and are taking into account expected delays in credit losses,” Van Rijswijk said in a statement.
Analysts had seen net profit for the three months ended March 31 at 813 million euros ($976 million), according to Refinitiv data. In the year earlier period, ING had profit of 670 million euros.
Provisions for bad loans fell to 223 million euros from 661 million euros in the same period a year ago.
ING said net core lending increased by 17.8 billion euros in the quarter, with its wholesale banking arm accounting for 15.1 billion, and the rest mostly from retail mortgage loans.
Among key metrics, the bank’s net interest margin shrank to 1.41% from 1.51% a year ago, reflecting the higher cost of customer deposits and worse lending terms.
Its cost-to-income ratio grew to 64.1% from 62.8% as it incurred extra costs to close some retail branch offices in the Netherlands and exited retail banking in the Czech Republic.
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Clarence Fernandez)
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