National Bank: Increase of 42% in Q1 profits

The National Bank of Greece group reported an increase, by 42 percent, in after-tax profits for the first quarter of the year, reaching 578 million euros.

NII increases were up 6 percent, yoy, reaching €294m on the back of funding cost benefits from time deposit re-pricing and the TLTRO facility, offsetting NPE NII reduction due to clean-up.

NPE reduction continued in 1Q21, with the stock of domestic NPEs down by €0.2b qoq to €4.1b, reflecting organic actions. Following the expiry of all of our moratoria by YE20, payment performance remains encouraging, as less than 7% of our clients that used moratoria are in early arrears (>30dpd) and c50% (€ terms) are low risk customers that have not requested further payment assistance, while transitions to the NPE perimeter are immaterial.

Despite the sustained lockdown in 1Q21, fees were up by 1% yoy to €67m.

Sharp cost cutting in Greece (-9% yoy), driven by the impressive reduction in personnel expenses (-17% yoy); C:CI improves sharply by 9ppts yoy to 52.1% in 1Q21.