Spain's Banco Santander profits reach 1.633 bln euros

Spain's Banco Santander profits reached 1.633 billion euros (1.848 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of the year, the bank reported on Wednesday.

The figure meant a 5 percent fall in comparison with the same period of a year earlier and according to it, "this decline is due to the depreciation against the euro of the currencies of all the countries where the Group is present, except the dollar."

Without this depreciation, the bank's profits would have increased 8 percent, Banco Santander said.

Ana Botin, group executive chairman of Banco Santander, said: "These results give us confidence that we will continue to deliver, including, as we announced, increasing the cash dividend per share by 10 percent and total dividend by 5 percent."

"The number of digital customers grew by 17 percent to 17.8 million, with a 49 percent increase in clients that are frequent users of our mobile applications", she reported.

Europe contributed 61 percent to the profits, with Britain representing 23 percent and Spain 15 percent, while the Americas accounted for 39 percent of the total.

Banco Santander registered attributable profit of 307 million euros in Spain in the first three months of the year, which meant a 10 percent fall when compared with the first quarter in 2015. In Spain, the total loan portfolio stood at 156.134 billion euros, 3 percent less than in March 2015.

The bank recently announced they would fire around 1,200 workers in Spain, closing between 400 and 450 of their smallest branches in order to have bigger ones. Endit