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MADRID (Reuters) -Spain’s BBVA on Friday said its second-quarter net profit rose 24% from the same period in 2022 thanks to wider interest margins in Mexico, its main market, and Spain.
It also said its board had agreed a share buy-back programme of 1 billion euros, around 2.3% of its current market value.
The lender booked a net profit of 2.03 billion euros in the April to June period, topping the 1.83 billion forecast by analysts polled by Reuters.
Higher earnings helped push its return on tangible equity ratio (ROTE), a measure of profitability, to 16.9% from 16.3% in March.
Provisions rose 46% to 1.025 billion euros, slightly below analysts’ forecasts.
The 1 billion euros share buy-back programme follows a smaller additional share buy-back earlier this year and a 3.2 billion euro programme it completed in 2022.
BBVA has recently said it has excess capital of around 4 billion euros, which is above its 11.5%-12% capital target range.
The lender finished June with a fully-loaded core tier-1 capital ratio, the strictest measure of solvency, of 12.99% compared to 13.13% in March.
European banks are benefiting from higher interest rates.
At a group level, BBVA’s net interest income (NII), or earnings on loans minus deposit costs, rose 25.5% year on year to 5.8 billion euros, also in line with analysts’ forecasts.
In Mexico, the bank’s net profit rose 32% while net interest income climbed 38%.
In Spain, net profit more than tripled versus a year earlier while NII was up 51%.
($1 = 0.9114 euros)
Reporting by Jesús Aguado; editing by Inti Landauro and Jason Neely
