National Bank reports 262 mln euros net profits in Jan-Sept.

National Bank Group on Wednesday reported net profits of 262 million euros in the January-September period this year, from a loss of 2.4 billion euros in the corresponding period in 2012.

The bank attributed this development to an improving domestic economic climate, allowing a slowdown of new bad debts, a decline in deposit interest rates and a decline in high trading losses of the previous year.

National Bank Group said Finansbank contributed positively to the group’s results in the nine-month period, reporting earnings of 412 million euros, while its subsidiaries in Southeastern Europe contributed with profits of 17 million euros after losses of 38 million euros last year. On a quarterly basis, the group reported net profits worth 89 million euros.

Commenting on the results, Alexandros Tourkolias, chief executive of the group, said it was a general assessment that there was a change of climate in the country and the banking environment. “A progress seen in crucial sectors of the economy and the banking system has surfaced in strong investment interest which is currently in a process of transforming into investments. It is important to build on these foundations,” he said, adding that challenges for the banking system still remained. “We believe that the system will respond successfully to a new round of extreme stress tests, which will be an opportunity for Greek banks to be put in comparison with European banks.”