BNP Paribas went through the second quarter, marked by confinement, without damage, with net profit down to 2.3 billion euros, despite the surge in provisions made by the banking group to deal with defaults on its payments. clients.
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Like the rest of the global banking sector, the French bank has significantly increased its cost of risk, ie the amount of its provisions to deal with potential losses. In the space of a year, this has more than doubled reaching 1.4 billion euros at the end of June.
Between April and June, the group specifies having revised upwards its provisions to the tune of 329 million euros for " expected losses ", meaning that 1.1 billion euros have already been lost in bankruptcies and payment defaults. Despite this, the group managed to boost its net banking income (NBI) - equivalent to turnover - by 4% to 11.7 billion euros.
At the origin of this surge in activity: corporate and investment banking (BFI or CIB in English) whose revenues increased by more than 30% between April and June. The group is pleased in a press release to have played a " driving role for the financing of the economy by contributing to the proper functioning of the syndicated loan, bond and equity markets ".
400 jobs transferred to the European continent
Giving a sample of its most significant operations, BNP Paribas indicates that it has carried out a 10 billion dollar debt issue on its own for the British oil company BP or even jointly managed a 15 billion euro Spanish debt issue with a 10-year maturity. .
This take-off of the CIB division is the result, according to the group, of “ strategic choices made for several years ” in favor of a model strengthening “ cooperation between the businesses ”, in particular through digital platforms which have also facilitated exchanges with the customer base. BNP Paribas - which has stolen from Santander the title of first bank in the euro zone in terms of stock market valuation - specifies that it is ready, at the regulatory level, for the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31, 2020.
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BNP Paribas indicates transferring 400 positions on the European continent, of which 260 were already filled, due to Brexit, which means the loss of the European passport and the prohibition " for salespeople located in the United Kingdom to sell financial services to clients Europeans ”.