By Jesús Aguado
MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Sabadell on Thursday said its fourth-quarter net profit fell 7.5% from the same period a year ago after its British unit TSB lost 6 million euros ($6.55 million).
In the final quarter of 2022, TSB booked a fine of 48.65 million pounds over a botched IT platform migration in 2018 that locked millions of its customers out of their accounts.
At a group level, Sabadell reported a net profit of 149 million euros in the October to December period, which clearly exceeded the 95 million euros forecast by analysts polled by Reuters thanks to a rise in lending income and lower costs.
For years, banks across Europe have been under pressure from record low interest rates, but that is beginning to change as rising rates are boosting financial margins.
Sabadell’s fourth-quarter net interest income rose 24.8% from a year earlier to 1.08 billion euros, compared with analysts’ forecasts of 1.02 billion euros.
($1 = 0.9159 euros)
(Reporting by Jesús Aguado, edited by Inti Landauro)
