Raiffeisen Bank makes EUR 50 mln profit while revenues drop 12%

Raiffeisen Bank posted a net profit of almost EUR 50 million in the first half of the year, the bank has announced. The bank's operational profit was of EUR 83.8 million – compared to EUR 106.2 million mid-2009. The net profit for the first half this year was 5 percent below the value reported after the first half of 2009 – EUR 52.7 million. The bank's revenues however dropped by 12 percent, to EUR 210.4 million, which was mainly caused by a drop of revenues from the treasury activity. The bank's operational expenses went down by 3.7 percent- out of which personnel expenses, by 1 percent in euro. Even if our revenues dropped by 12 percent, we managed to control costs- provisions have considerably dropped, we managed expenses more efficiently and stayed profitable,” said Steven van Groningen, president of Raiffeisen Bank. The bank's assets were slightly down, to EUR 4.57 billion from EUR 4.67 billion in June 2009. The bank has a network of 539 agencies, down on 558 agencies in June 2009. It employs 5,906 people- down on 6.500 people in June 2009.