Spain’s BBVA profit almost halves, sees 47% drop

Madrid: BBVA, Spain’s second-biggest bank, reported a 47 per cent drop in nine-month net profit on Wednesday, after it wrote off billions of euros of losses on bad real estate investments. Profit margins at Spanish banks are waning as they belatedly recognise the effects of a decade-long housing boom that crashed in 2008, leading the government to ask for a €100-billion (Dh480 billion or $129 billion) credit line from Europe to bail out the weakest. Nine-month net profit came in at €1.7 billion, down 47 per cent on the year and in line with analyst expectations.