The most relevant aspects of earnings in this area in 2012 are summarized below:
- Net interest income was slightly less negative than in 2011, at -€697m compared with -€614m, due to the increased wholesale-funding costs arising from the current situation in the euro zone. However, all the issues have been placed at below the price of the Spanish sovereign.
- Favorable performance of NTI, basically as a result of the capital gains registered on the repurchase of securitization bonds in the second quarter of 2012 and of subordinated debt in the fourth quarter. As a result, there has been significant growth of 89.7% in NTI in 2012 to €828m.
- Gross income is a negative €69m (-€8m a year ago).
- Operating expenses continue to reflect the Group’s investment effort in staff training, technology, brand and infrastructure. They increased by 13.5% year-on-year to €1,107m.
- There has been a significant increase in provisions over the quarter to absorb the impairment on the real-estate and foreclosed assets in Spain, though this was offset in part by the badwill generated from the Unnim operation. As a result, provisions and other gains/losses are a negative €1,569m (- €1,049m in 2011).
- As a result, the net attributable profit in 2012 is -1,649m, compared with -€1,405m in 2011. This more negative performance compared with the previous year is mainly due to the aforementioned provisioning effort.