Bankinter’s earnings up 73 percent

Medium-sized Spanish lender Bankinter on Wednesday reported an increase in its net income for last year of 72.78 percent to 215.4 million euros, its best result in the past four years.

“These results are based on solid growth in the bank’s strategic business lines of private banking and companies, and confirm the favorable evolution of margins and the solidity and profitability of its insurance activity,” Bankinter said in a statement.

Net interest income – the difference between what a bank earns from lending and what it pays out on deposits – declined 3.7 percent to 635.9 million euros, mainly as a result of low interest rates, particularly the one-year Euribor rate, the benchmark for setting mortgages, which is at historic lows. The bank’s profit before provisioning was up 18.1 percent at 695.6 million euros.

Bankinter’s non-performing loan ratio at the end of 2013 stood at 4.98 percent, up from 4.28 percent a year earlier. The average in the sector as of November of last year was over 13 percent.

The bank’s portfolio of foreclosed assets, mainly in the form of real estate, stood at 627.8 million euros, below that of the third quarter. Bankinter is one of the banks least exposed to the ailing property sector.

Bankinter said it reduced its portfolio of bonds to 4.5 billion euros from 8.7 billion in the third quarter ahead of a series of balance sheet tests European banks will be submitted to this year by the European Central Bank.