BCP bank sees 2022 profits rising 50% to €207.5M

  • Lusa
  • 28 February 2023

The bank achieved a cost to income ratio below 40% in 2022 (37%), already meeting the strategic plan's target and making BCP a reference "at the efficiency level", said the CEO.

Millennium BCP made profits of €207.5 million in 2022, up 50% from €138.1 million in 2021, the bank disclosed on Monday.

Last year, in consolidated terms, net interest income grew 35.3% to €2.149.8 billion and commissions rose 6.1% to €771.9 million. Operating costs fell 3.8% to €1.073 billion, with staff costs rising to €564.3 million (similar to 2021).

Miguel Maya highlighted that the bank achieved a cost to income ratio below 40% in 2022 (37%), already meeting the strategic plan’s target and making BCP a reference “at the efficiency level”, he said.

In 2022, BCP had charges of €525.6 million with the Swiss franc mortgage loan portfolio in the Polish operation, which includes €102.3 million for goodwill impairment of Bank Millennium (in 2021 there was no impairment).

BCP has an important operation in Poland, where it holds 50.1% of Bank Millennium.

On October 3, 2021, the European Union Court of Justice considered there were “abusive clauses” in the loans made in Poland in Swiss francs, including by BCP, admitting the possibility of their annulment under European law.

At issue is a request for annulment made by Polish citizens to the courts in Poland and which reached the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) regarding loans in Swiss francs contracted by them in 2008 in Poland, namely home loans, which led to an increase in household debts when the Swiss franc appreciated against the local currency, the zloty.

In its judgment, published on 3 October, the CJEU ruled that “in loan agreements concluded in Poland and indexed to a foreign currency, unfair terms relating to the difference in exchange rates cannot be replaced by the general provisions of Polish civil law”.

Also according to the results released today, by geographies, BCP had profits of €353.6 million in Portugal (more than double the €172.8 million of 2022). In Poland it had losses of €216.7 million (down from €284.4 million in 2021) and in Mozambique profits of €101.9 million (up from €95.6 million in 2021).

In a press conference, the chief executive officer (CEO) of BCP, Miguel Maya, said that the bank had not counted in its strategic plan on the “adversities it had to face” – pandemic, inflation, the war in Europe and the charges related to Swiss franc loans at Poland’s Bank Millennium – but managed to “overcome adversity.”