THE chairman of banking giant Santander has said he expects profits to rebound in 2013 after provisions for home loan defaults in Spain peak.
In an interview with the Banker, Emilio Botin said the group’s 2012 profits will be down due to “large extraordinary provisions for Spanish real estate loans”.
“Santander will finish the extraordinary provisioning in 2012, ahead of most other banks, and we expect our Spanish non-performing loans to peak at about 7 per cent in the first half of 2013,” said Botin.
“Profits will then start to rebound,” he predicted.
Spanish banks have had to provision heavily against toxic property assets after a decade-long industry boom came to an abrupt end five years ago and the sector has yet to recover.