Swedbank beats quarterly profit expectations on trading, low loan losses
Rewrites, adds analyst comment, details
By Johan Ahlander
STOCKHOLM, July 16 (Reuters) -Swedish banking group Swedbank SWEDa.ST reported a second-quarter net profit that exceeded expectations on Tuesday on strong trading income and lower loan losses, and the bank's head noted that "loan volumes remained muted" in uncertain times.
The Nordic country's biggest mortgage lender said net profit fell to 8.60 billion crowns ($810 million), against 9.12 billion a year ago and beating a mean forecastof 7.96 billion in an LSE poll of analysts.
"It's another strong quarter in uncertain times," CEO Jens Henriksson told reporters.
"Loan demand remained stable in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In Sweden, demand for loan commitments increased, but the overall loan volumes remained muted."
The rival to Handelsbanken SHBa.ST, Nordea NDAFI.HE and SEB SEBa.ST said its interest income - which includes revenue from mortgages - fell to 12.2 billion crowns from 12.8 billion, matching analysts mean expectations.
Swedbank's income has benefited from higher interest rates in the last years, boosting revenue from loans and mortgages. However, as central bank are widely expected to cut rates this and next year, income is likely to be squeezed.
Swedbank had net positive credit impairments of 286 million crowns in the quarter, mainly due to better macroeconomic scenarios.
"The better-than-expected bottomline is almost entirely explained by strong trading income and net reversals of loan losses," JP Morgan said in a research note.
Swedbank made a trading gain of 911 million crowns in the quarter, up from 524 million in the same quarter last year.
Total expenses increased to 6.47 billion crowns from 5.72 billion.
($1 = 10.6151 Swedish crowns)
Reporting by Johan Ahlander, editing by Anna Ringstrom and Bernadette Baum
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