ATHENS (Reuters) -Greece’s Piraeus Bank reported a drop in second-quarter net earnings on Wednesday, hit by a lower net interest margin, but it maintained its profit guidance for the year and said it would pay an interim dividend.
Chief Executive Officer Christos Megalou also said the bank intended to distribute 100 million euros ($115 million) out of 2025 profit to shareholders via a share buyback, subject to supervisory approvals.
He added that the bank was well on track to meet its full year target of 0.80 earnings per share.
Piraeus, Greece’s third largest lender by market value, reported net earnings of 276 million euros, down from 330 million euros in the second quarter of 2024, after record profit last year.
Net interest income was down 10% year on year at 474 million euros, the bank said, citing lower euro zone interest rates but upgraded its estimate for its loan book.
“Our loan portfolio increased by 15% year on year, reaching 36 billion euros, surpassing our end-2025 target ahead of schedule; thus, today we are raising our full year performing loans target to more than 36.5 billion euros,” Megalou said on a conference call with analysts later in the day.
Greek banks have seen their net interest income fall due to the decline in interest rates in the euro zone, prompting them to try and diversify income sources by expanding wealth management and insurance businesses.
Piraeus, which agreed to acquire Ethniki Insurance earlier this year to boost the sale of insurance products through its network, expects profit of about 1.1 billion euros annually up to 2027, rising to about 1.3 billion euros by 2028.
The bank’s non-performing exposure ratio was 2.6% at the end of June, down from 3.3% a year earlier.
(= 0.8660 euros)
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas;Editing by David Goodman and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
