News

Deutsche Bank announced further €2.3bn writedowns and a fall in net income (down to €645m from €1.8bn in the same period last year).



HSBC announced that pre-tax profits fell 28 percent to $10.2bn (from $14.2bn last year), ahead of analysts' forecasts. It said it is profitable in all its geographic regions, except North America.



HSBC is one of the world's largest banks by market capitalisation.



Fortis saw an even bigger fall of profits as its first-half results are 41 percent lower than last year's. First-half net profit is €1.64bn, down from €2.78bn. This is due to a larger-than-expected writedown of €591m, which mainly emanated from the bank's expsoure to mortgage-backed securities.



Shares in Fortis have lost two-thirds of their value since the start of the financial turmoil.



Profits also fell at Barclays, Aegon, Allianz and Danske Bank.



By contrast, French bank BNP Paribas and German one Commerzbank have reported higher-than-expected profits for the second quarter driving their shares up



Net profit fell 34 percent at BNP to €1.51bn from €2.28bn a year ago.



On the other hand, the German bank announced a 6.4 percent rise in net profit to €817m.



Credit Suisse made CHF 1.22bn of net income in the second quarter and revealed only a small net markdown on its credit assets.



Spanish banks BBVA and Santander both reported a rise in first-half net profit, respectively 11.6 percent and 6 percent.



UniCredit's net profit rose to €1.87bn from €1bn in the first quarter.