The most relevant aspects of earnings in this area in 2012 are summarized below:
- Net interest income was slightly more 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 new 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. However, their rate of year-on-year growth slowed compared with previous quarters.
- There has been another 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 (–€1,649m in 2011).
- As a result, the net attributable profit in 2012 is –€1,583m, compared with –€1,405m in 2011. This more negative performance compared with the previous year is mainly due to the aforementioned provisioning effort.