Lisbon, Nov. 7, 2025 (Lusa) - Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) made historic profits of €1.4 billion between January and September, 2% more than in the same period in 2024, the bank announced on Thursday.
At the opening of the press conference, the state-owned bank's CEO, Paulo Macedo, said that despite the slight growth in profits in a context of falling interest rates, turnover grew by €10 billion in the first nine months of this year in Portugal.
Between January and September, net interest income (the difference between interest charged on loans and interest paid on deposits) fell 9.7% to €1.916 billion, while commissions rose slightly (0.5%) to €439 million.
With regard to the commissions charged by the bank, CGD's chairman said that, for the time being, the commissions will be maintained, but added that in the future it is necessary to reflect on them, as he considered that CGD has some of the lowest commissions on the market.
The banker said that some commission exemptions need to be rethought, such as credit transfers and some home loans.
Structural costs rose 3.8% to €810 million.
Of these, staff costs fell 0.2% to €387 million.
Also up to September, there was a reversal of ‘impairment provisions for credit risk’ totalling €161 million (down from the €197 million reversal in the same period in 2024).
Other provisions and impairments also reversed by €119 million (compared to €91 million in the same period last year), helping the public bank's net profit.
CGD's accounts presented today already reflect a €29 million refund of the banking sector surcharge, a tax declared unconstitutional and which the state must therefore return.
In the period under review, the operation in Portugal contributed €1.290 billion to the consolidated net profit, and international activity contributed €106 million.
Abroad, Macau's BNU contributed €37 million, Mozambique's BCI €31 million and Angola's BCG €16 million.
Net return on equity went from 18.8% at the end of September last year to 17.7%, while net return on assets fell 0.2 percentage points to 2.5%.
In turn, the cost of credit risk remained negative at -0.33%.
In Portugal, the effect of lower interest rates “was offset by a €3.3 billion increase in the volume of loans granted”, with domestic activity contributing €1.5 billion to the consolidated net interest income.
Overall, the gross customer loans portfolio increased by 5.1% to €58.189 billion, of which €50.912 billion were in Portugal.
Loans to companies totalled €22.101 billion at the end of September and to individuals €28.811 billion, representing increases of 5.8% and 7.8% since the start of the year.
For private customers, the loan portfolio grew by 7.6% for mortgages (€27.485 billion) and by 11.0% for consumer credit and other purposes.
In turn, deposits grew by 2.8% in the consolidated balance sheet since the start of the year, to €89.195 billion. In domestic activity, the rise was 4.0%, supported by a 14.9% increase in corporate and institutional resources to €18.382 billion. In international activity, there was a 5.6% decrease to €10.426 billion.
CGD was pleased with its leading share of total loans (18%), individual loans (19.7%) and home loans (24.1%).
At the end of September, CGD had 5,962 employees and 512 branches in Portugal, maintaining the number of branches, but with 265 fewer employees than reported a year ago.
Asked about the sale of Banco Caixa Geral - Brasil, Paulo Macedo said that there are now more offers than in the previous process, but that the operation won't take place before next year or 2027.
As for the sale of his 19% stake in Águas de Portugal, the chairman of CGD said that the sale to Parpública is being finalised, but wouldn't say how much it might bring in for the public bank.
JO/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
