APS Bank has closed its first six months of 2020 with a Group pre-tax profit of €8.9 million, compared to €15 million in 2019, while the bank delivered a pre-tax result of €10.3 million, only marginally less than €11.4 million in 2019.

Despite a strong start to the year, the Covid-19 pandemic brought business momentum to a halt, impacting the bank’s profits for the first six months of the year.

“This performance is very satisfactory considering the dramatic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business momentum,” the bank said in its statement. “The Bank continued with its operations relentlessly, maintaining over 90 per cent of the branch network active, upscaling its digital presence and standing by its customers during these difficult times.”

Group performance was mostly impacted by the exposure to the APS Funds SICAV, which generated a net adverse correction of €0.6 million, compared to gains of €3.9 million in the first half of 2019.

The bank’s net interest income grew by 10 per cent over the same period in 2019, to €23.9 million. “This is a remarkable result considering that compressed interest rate conditions continued to prevail and the Bank was largely supporting its business base with moratoria and emergency financial support by the end of Q1.”

Total group assets by the end of 30 June 2020 stood at €2.3 billion, a growth of €119 million or 5.5 per cent, on 31 December 2019. Loans and debt securities were the key components of this increase, growing by 6.7 per cent and 22.8 per cent respectively over the period under review.

Total deposits increased by 6.5 per cent during the same period, to €2.05 billion. Consolidated Equity at 30 June 2020 was of €196.0 million, compared to €191.9 million in 2019), while for the bank this amounted to €185.9 million (compared to €181.1 million in 2019).