Spain's Banco Santander earns 4.61 bln euros in Jan-Sept

Spain's Banco Santander reported 4.61 billion euros (5.04 billion U.S. dollars) of attributable profits in the first nine months of the year, the bank reported on Wednesday.

The figure meant a 22.5 percent fall when compared with the same period in 2015. As for the third quarter, the bank earned 1.7 billion euros, which meant a 1 percent rise in comparison with the same period of last year.

Excluding the impact of currency depreciation against the euro, attributable profits were 7 percent higher in the third quarter when compared with the third quarter in 2015, according to the bank.

In Spain, the bank's net profits fell by 11.1 percent to 785 million euros. The bank pointed out that it aims at increasing "customer loyalty and improve service quality."

The group's loan loss provisions "were broadly flat" when compared with the first nine months of a year earlier and stood at 7.11 billion euros. The non-performing loan ratio fell to 4.15 percent from the previous 4.5 percent.

Europe contributed 56 percent to the group's profits, including Britain 19 percent, Spain 14 percent, and the Americas, 44 percent, including Brazil with 20 percent and Mexico with seven percent.

Banco Santander Group Executive Chairman, Ana Botin, said that the lender had delivered strong performance from January to September "earning the loyalty of a further one million customers, while maintain our position as one of the most profitable banks in our peer group".

She expects the bank to finish the year with more profits than in 2015, when it earned 5.97 billion euros. Endit