The results are similar to last year affected by the covidu-19 pandemic. The bank, which is majority owned by France’s Société Générale, announced its consolidated financial results in a press release today.
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The Bank’s Board of Directors wants to convene an extraordinary general meeting in the fourth quarter. It is to decide on the distribution of the interim dividend from the profits of 2019 and 2020, which were withheld due to regulatory restrictions related to the pandemic.
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The company’s management expects that KB’s operations will remain profitable in 2021, the bank said.
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In the first half of the year, Komerční banka’s net interest income fell by 8.2 percent to ten billion, despite the fact that the volume of loans and deposits increased. The reason is a sharp drop in interest rates in the first half of last year.
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“Net fees and commissions improved by 6.3 percent to CZK 2.8 billion, thanks to a recovery in economic activity and cross-selling revenues,” the bank said.
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Loans to clients rose by 4.7 percent to 708.1 billion crowns, mainly due to the growth of mortgages, which increased by 8.9 percent.
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Consumer credit, on the other hand, fell 0.6 percent due to uncertainty and restrictions related to the pandemic. Client deposits increased by 11 percent year on year to CZK 996.9 billion.
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“The prevailing uncertainty affected mainly unsecured consumer loans and clients from the business segments reduced or postponed their investment projects, thus demanding less long-term financing,” the bank said.
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Mortgages, on the other hand, remained strong because they were supported by low interest rates and people still see housing as a safe asset.
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At the end of June, the bank had approximately 2,244,000 clients. In year-on-year comparison, it was a decrease of 68 thousand clients.
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Komerční banka is one of the leading banking institutions in the Czech Republic and in the region of Central and Eastern Europe. KB’s main shareholder is the French Société Générale with a share of 60.35 percent. KB shares are traded on the Prague Stock Exchange.
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Société Générale returned to a profit of € 1.44 billion (CZK 36.7 billion) in the second quarter of this year, after losing € 1.26 billion last year.
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The economy was supported by lower costs of bad loans and a recovery in the domestic division of current banking services. The bank now expects to increase revenues in all divisions this year, including the retail banking services division in France.
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Competitive banks are also gaining profits in the Czech Republic. In the first half of the year, Česká spořitelna’s net profit rose by 43.4 percent year on year to 6.6 billion crowns, and Raiffeisenbank by 26 percent to 1.69 billion crowns.
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In this period, Money Bank’s consolidated net profit increased by 18.3 percent year-on-year to CZK 5.38 billion.
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