Paris: French bank BNP Paribas on Wednesday posted its fourth straight quarterly profit but said earnings are still below pre-crisis levels.

The euro zone's largest banking group said it earned a net profit of 1.37 billion euros (Dh6.8 billion) having lost an identical amount a year earlier. Profits increased 4.6 per cent from the third quarter. Shares rose 2.2 per cent to 50.30 euros in Paris morning trade.

In a statement, CEO Baudouin Prot pleaded in favour of BNP Paribas' business model, which combines retail banking with investment banking.

The mix, he said, is "an essential component of the service offering necessary to meet customers' needs."

Mitigating risk

In the United States, President Barack Obama is looking to restore some of the separation of commercial banks from investment banks to lessen risk, a move European officials rejected on Tuesday as wrong for them.

For the full year 2009 BNP Paribas made a net profit of 5.83 billion euros, up 93 per cent but still short of the pre-crisis 7.82 billion euros it earned in 2007.

At the cooperate and investment banking division, pretax earnings totalled 834 million euros compared to a pretax loss of 2.07 billion euros a year earlier.

BNP Paribas said it used 28 per cent of revenue at the division to compensate employees, lower than the 40 per cent of previous years.

Prot, who as head of the French Banking Federation negotiated with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on new bonus rules in France, said BNP Paribas is "determined to be an exemplary player in reforming the bonus practices."

Bankers everywhere have come under pressure for returning to lavish bonus payouts soon after governments were forced to spend billions in taxpayer money bailing them out.

Pretax income in BNP Paribas' consumer-banking division rose 0.6 per cent to 316 million euros.

ING misses the mark

Dutch bancassurer ING Groep posted a fourth-quarter loss more than double forecasts, casting a shadow over plans to spin off its insurance business and refocus as a leading European retail bank.

ING also said it plans to spend the rest of this year working on how to split off its insurance business, making a trade sale or its preferred option of an initial public offering (IPO) unlikely until at least 2011. Some in the market had expected an IPO late this year.