|
Lending rose 20% over the year (13.9% in 2003), behaving especially positively in residential mortgages (+25.3%), SMEs and small businesses (+19.7%), and consumer lending (+16.2%). The figure for non-performing loans dropped 14.3% and the NPL ratio went down to 0.61%, well below the ratio for the banking industry as a whole. Total assets under management (deposits, mutual funds and pension funds) grew 10.1% during the year (7.3% in 2003), a rise equivalent to 10,591 million euros (7,122 million in 2003). Stable customer funds (time deposits and mutual and pension funds) showed a year-on-year growth of 11.0%, while transactional deposits were up 7.9%. The 12.0% increase in assets under management in mutual funds compared favourably against the 11.0% recorded by the industry as a whole. Consequently, market share on 31-12-04 reached 18.7%, gaining 16 basis points over the year. Core revenues in Retail Banking showed an increase of 6.5% during the year, with net interest income rising 3.9% and fee income 11.6% (+10.7% in fund-management fees and +12.1% in other fees). Since general administrative expenses were down 0.5% against 2003, the cost-income ratio improved to 41.8% and, as stated above, operating profit was up 13.3%. Although the NPL ratio for the area dropped further in 2004, loan loss provisions swelled by 17.8% against the previous year, as generic provisioning grew apace with the rapidly growth of lending activities and because of the increase in the statistical provision. All this produced an attributable profit for the area of 1.41 billion euros, showing an increase of 13.8% and ROE went up to 32.0% (30.9% in 2003).
|