Mexico
Highlights
- Growth in lending activity and customer funds in the quarter
- Improved customer spread, which is already partly reflected in the net interest income
- Significant improvement in the efficiency ratio
- Impairment on financial assets related to the macroeconomic environment with a good performance of the loan portfolio
Business activity (1)
(VARIATION AT CONSTANT EXCHANGE RATE COMPARED TO 31-12-21)
(1) Excluding repos.
Net interest income/ AVERAGE TOTAL ASSETS
(PERCENTAGE AT CONSTANT EXCHANGE RATE)
Operating income
(Millions of euros at constant exchange rate)
(1) At current exchange rate: +31.4%.
Net attributable profit (LOSS)
(Millions of euros at constant exchange rate)
(1) At current exchange rate: +59.0%.
Financial statements and relevant business indicators (Millions of euros and percentage)
| Income statement | 1Q22 | ∆% | ∆% (1) | 1Q21 (2) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net interest income | 1,746 | 27.8 | 19.8 | 1,366 |
| Net fees and commissions | 343 | 21.7 | 14.1 | 282 |
| Net trading income | 92 | 33.0 | 24.6 | 69 |
| Other operating income and expenses | 64 | 45.6 | 36.5 | 44 |
| Gross income | 2,245 | 27.5 | 19.5 | 1,761 |
| Operating expenses | (756) | 20.4 | 12.9 | (628) |
| Personnel expenses | (334) | 31.0 | 22.8 | (255) |
| Other administrative expenses | (332) | 12.6 | 5.5 | (295) |
| Depreciation | (90) | 15.4 | 8.2 | (78) |
| Operating income | 1,488 | 31.4 | 23.2 | 1,133 |
| Impairment on financial assets not measured at fair value through profit or loss | (419) | (8.5) | (14.3) | (458) |
| Provisions or reversal of provisions and other results | (1) | n.s. | n.s. | 2 |
| Profit (loss) before tax | 1,068 | 57.9 | 48.0 | 677 |
| Income tax | (291) | 55.1 | 45.4 | (188) |
| Profit (loss) for the period | 777 | 59.0 | 49.0 | 489 |
| Non-controlling interests | (0) | 63.5 | 53.3 | (0) |
| Net attributable profit (loss) | 777 | 59.0 | 49.0 | 489 |
- (1) At constant exchange rate.
- (2) Restated balances. For more information, please refer to the “Business Areas” section.
| Balance sheets | 31-03-22 | ∆% | ∆% (1) | 31-12-21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash, cash balances at central banks and other demand deposits | 14,927 | 15.0 | 9.7 | 12,985 |
| Financial assets designated at fair value | 37,488 | 6.7 | 1.9 | 35,126 |
| Of which: loans and advances | 1,343 | 60.9 | 53.5 | 835 |
| Financial assets at amortized cost | 70,952 | 8.6 | 3.7 | 65,311 |
| Of which: loans and advances to customers | 60,744 | 8.8 | 3.9 | 55,809 |
| Tangible assets | 1,771 | 2.3 | (2.4) | 1,731 |
| Other assets | 3,085 | 4.5 | (0.3) | 2,953 |
| Total assets/liabilities and equity | 128,221 | 8.6 | 3.6 | 118,106 |
| Financial liabilities held for trading and designated at fair value through profit or loss | 22,773 | 14.8 | 9.5 | 19,843 |
| Deposits from central banks and credit institutions | 2,797 | (14.4) | (18.3) | 3,268 |
| Deposits from customers | 69,537 | 8.6 | 3.7 | 64,003 |
| Debt certificates | 8,286 | 3.8 | (0.9) | 7,984 |
| Other liabilities | 16,987 | 7.7 | 2.8 | 15,779 |
| Regulatory capital allocated | 7,841 | 8.5 | 3.5 | 7,229 |
| Relevant business indicators | 31-03-22 | ∆% | ∆% (1) | 31-12-21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Performing loans and advances to customers under management (2) | 61,040 | 9.1 | 4.2 | 55,926 |
| Non-performing loans | 1,943 | 1.1 | (3.5) | 1,921 |
| Customer deposits under management (2) | 69,089 | 9.1 | 4.1 | 63,349 |
| Off-balance sheet funds (3) | 34,434 | 6.3 | 1.5 | 32,380 |
| Risk-weighted assets | 67,626 | 4.7 | 0.0 | 64,573 |
| Efficiency ratio (%) | 33.7 | 35.3 | ||
| NPL ratio (%) | 3.0 | 3.2 | ||
| NPL coverage ratio (%) | 115 | 106 | ||
| Cost of risk (%) | 2.84 | 2.67 |
- (1) At constant exchange rate.
- (2) Excluding repos.
- (3) Includes mutual funds, customer portfolios and other off-balance sheet funds.
Macro and industry trends
Economic growth decelerated in the second half of 2021 after a strong expansion in the first half of the year. Thus, GDP growth was 5.0% in 2021, lower than initially expected by BBVA Research. This figure reflects a partial activity recovery given the 8.4% drop recorded in 2020. At the same time, strong inflationary pressures have led Banxico to raise monetary policy interest rates to 6.5% in March, from 4.0% in May last year. According to estimates by BBVA Research, interest rates will continue to increase, in an environment of relatively high inflation (around 6.4% on average in 2022), and GDP growth this year will moderate to around 1.2% (one percentage point lower than expected three months ago).
With regard to the banking system, based on data as of January 2022, the lending volume increased by 4.8% in the last twelve months, showing strong growth in the mortgage portfolio (+10.1%), followed by consumer loans (+4.8%) and corporate loans (+3.0%), while deposits (demand and time deposits) increased by 7.1% in January 2022, on a year-on-year basis. The system's NPL ratio stood at 2.44% in January 2022 (+2.70% twelve months earlier) and the capital indicators are comfortable.
Unless expressly stated otherwise, all the comments below on rates of change, for both activity and results, will be given at constant exchange rate. These rates, together with changes at current exchange rates, can be found in the attached tables of financial statements and relevant business indicators.
Activity
The most relevant aspects related to the area's activity during the first quarter of 2022 were:
- Lending activity (performing loans under management) recorded a growth of 4.2% between January and March 2022, with growth in, both, the wholesale and retail portfolio. The retail segment continued to show the dynamism that began in the second quarter of 2021 and grew at a rate of 3.2% in the quarter. Within this segment, SME, mortgage loans and consumer loans (+7.0%, +2.7% and +4.0%, respectively) showed the greatest dynamism, while mortgage loans, together with credit cards, slowed their growth rate compared to the previous quarter. For its part, the wholesale portfolio, which includes larger companies and the public sector, recorded a growth of 4.2%, due to commercial efforts to attract and retain new customers. As a result of the above, the retail portfolio weight, which is more profitable for BBVA Mexico, stood at 50.5% at the end of March 2022.
- With regard to the asset quality indicators, the NPL ratio stood at 3.0% at the end of March, representing an improvement of 22 basis points in the quarter, reflecting the good performance of NPL flows with lower inflows in the quarter. For its part, the NPL coverage ratio closed March at 115%, with an increase of 915 basis points in the quarter.
- Customer deposits under management increased in the first quarter of 2022 (+4.1%). This performance is explained, both, by the growth in demand deposits (+4.7%) and by time deposits (+1.0%). Finally, off-balance sheet funds grew by 1.5% between January and March 2022.
Results
In Mexico, BBVA achieved a net attributable profit of €777m between January and March 2022, representing an increase of 49.0% compared to the first quarter of 2021, mainly as a result of the good performance of recurring revenues, favored especially by the dynamism of the net interest income and lower loan-loss provisions, which compensated the increase in operating expenses.
The most relevant aspects of the year-on-year changes in the income statement at the end of March 2022 are summarized below:
- Net interest income increased by 19.8%, mainly as a result of both higher volumes of loans under management and the price effect, as some portfolios already reflect increased official interest rates together with better results from the securities portfolio. This offset the higher financing costs, resulting from both, higher balances of customer deposits and from the aforementioned increase of rates.
- Net fees and commissions increased by 14.1% thanks to higher levels of transactions, especially on credit cards, as well as those arising from investment banking operations and mutual fund management.
- NTI increased by 24.6% year-on-year, mainly due to the excellent results of the Global Markets unit in the first three months of 2022.
- The other operating income and expenses line recorded a year-on-year growth of 36.5%, mainly due to the higher results of the insurance business.
- Operating expenses increased (+12.9%), mainly due to higher personnel expenses, impacted by the employee internalization process carried out in the second half of 2021. General expenses also increased, in an environment of rising prices where certain expenses are indexed to inflation, as well as by higher marketing and technology expenses. Notwithstanding the above, there was a significant improvement in the efficiency ratio, which stood at 33.7% compared to 35.7% recorded twelve months earlier.
- The impairment on financial assets decreased year-on-year (-14.3%), due to lower provisioning requirements for the loan portfolio. As a result of all the above, the cumulative cost of risk as of March 2022 stood at 2.84%.
- The provisions and other results line showed an unfavorable comparison, impacted by provisions for contingent liabilities and commitments that offset the higher results from sales of foreclosed assets.