Crédit Agricole Group reported a 32.8% drop in its net income group share in the first quarter of 2020 (Q1 2020) at €908m compared to €1.35bn it made in the same quarter of 2019 (Q1 2019).
The French cooperative financial institution said that the specific items recorded in Q1 2020 generated a negative net impact of -€73m on net income group share. With the exclusion of the specific items, the underlying net income group share would be €981m, which is 31.6% down compared to Q1 2019.
Crédit Agricole Group said that the decline in its Q1 2020 net income group share was primarily because of the effects of the Covid-19 crisis.
The group’s stated revenues for Q1 2020 is €8.36bn, which is up by 2.1% compared to the Q1 2019’s stated revenues of €8.19bn.
Its underlying operating expenses went up 3.8% to €5.47bn in comparison to Q1 2019, in line with IT investments in the regional banks business under the group project and medium-term plan, and the impact of taxes on the Crédit Agricole business lines, in particular the asset gathering and specialised financial services.
In June 2019, the group announced plans to invest €15bn in technology for the next four years with an objective to achieve “greater efficiency”.
The underlying gross operating income of Crédit Agricole Group in Q1 2020 came down by 6.8% to €2.44bn in comparison to first quarter 2019.
In Q1 2020, the underlying revenues of the regional banks business was down by 7.3% at €3.23bn compared to the year before quarter.
The group’s Crédit Agricole subsidiary reported net income group share of €638m in Q1 2020 compared to €763m in the first quarter of 2019. Crédit Agricole’s underlying revenues in the reported quarter is €5.13bn, which is an increase by 4.8% compared to Q1 2019.
Crédit Agricole Group CEO Philippe Brassac said: “Our results are good, and allowed us, this quarter, to absorb a multiplication of cost of risk by three. We are solid, we are prudent in our assumptions, and we are very committed vis-à-vis the economy to successfully deliver with success a scenario that we believe to be quite manageable”.
