The bank still wants to distribute a dividend of EUR 0.50 per share.
Due to high provisions for possible loan defaults, Erste Group halved its profit in 2020. The bottom line was 783.1 million euros, after 1.47 billion euros in the previous year, the bank announced on Friday.
Operationally stable
The bank set aside 1.3 billion euros as risk provisioning in 2020. Nevertheless, the institute plans to distribute a dividend of EUR 0.50 per share. In addition, EUR 1.0 per share is to be reserved for a potential special dividend.
Operationally, however, the results remained stable. Net interest income rose by 0.6 percent to around EUR 4.8 billion, while net commission income fell by 1.2 percent to just under EUR 2 billion.
The customer loan volume rose by 3.6 percent to EUR 166.1 billion, while deposits rose by 9.9 percent to EUR 191.1 billion.
