The Czech National Bank writes that Czech banks have had a record year, producing profits of CZK 62.6bn over the first three months of the year. That’s the best result for the sector in the past ten years and has been driven primarily by interest rate earnings, which reached CZK 93.9bn through September. That’s CZK 11.4bn more than in 2017, thanks to a growth in the volume of corporate loans and to rising interest rates. Retail loans, however, have slowed slightly over the first nine months of 2018, losing CZK 1.1bn. The country’s banks have done well on an individual level. Česká spořitelna’s CZK 11.8bn profit for the first three quarters is CKZ 140m better than in 2017, while ČSOB saw its profits rise 2.4 percent to CZK 11bn, while UniCredit Bank (in Czechia and Slovakia) reported profits of CZK 6.9bn, a jump of 23 percent.
