Profit for Dutch bank Rabobank declines in first half of 2016

Rabobank suffered a major decrease of profit in the first half of 2016, the Dutch bank announced on Thursday.

The net profit in H1 2016 amounted to 924 million euros (1.045 billion U.S. dollars), 39 percent lower than in the first half of 2015, when it was 1.522 billion euros.

The bank stated that profit went down due to restructuring costs, an additional provision for compensation of business customers with interest rate derivatives, market volatility and higher regulatory levies.

The recovery of the Dutch economy contributed to a sharp fall of Rabobank's loan impairment charges, which went down to 148 million euros in H1 2016, a drop of 58 percent compared to the 356 million euros in the first half year of 2015.

"While there's still much to do, we are well on track regarding the fundamental strengthening of our cooperative bank," executive board chairman Wiebe Draijer said in a press release.

Earlier this month two other major Dutch bank published a slight decrease of net profit. ABN Amro on Wednesday reported an underlying net profit for H1 2016 of 1.136 billion euros, 1 percent down compared to the 1.144 billion euros of the first half of 2015.

On Aug. 3 this year, ING published a small decline of the underlying net result, which dropped by 2 percent from 2.304 billion euros (H1 2015) to 2.259 billion euros (H1 2016). (1 euro = 1.13 U.S. dollars) Endit