Emporiki Bank posts 535-million-euro first half loss

ATHENS, Aug 4؇reece’s Emporiki Bank, owned by French group Credit Agricole, on Friday announced a net first-half net loss of 535.2 million euros (699 million dollars), a 49.1-percent widening in last year’s shortfall.
The bank, Greece’s fifth largest, had posted a net loss of 359 million in the first half of 2009.
Emporiki attributed the result to “additional high provisions and increased one-off costs related to the bank’s accelerated transformation.”
It noted that it had sustained additional group losses of 325.9 million euros in the second quarter of 2010.
The bank said its first-half net banking income had increased by 7.4 percent to 368.4 million euros while gross operating income jumped by 71 percent to 39.9 million euros.
“In the second quarter of 2010 Emporiki further improved its operating performance, as a result of an effective commercial policy and the successful cost control measures that have been implemented,” the bank’s vice-chairman and CEO Alain Strub said a statement.
Acquired by France’s Credit Agricole in 2006, Emporiki has 340 branches in Greece and subsidiaries in Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus and Germany.