€2,519 million in six months, and Portugal's five biggest banks still earned less than last year
CGD, BCP, Santander Totta, BPI and Novo Banco closed the first half 3.4% down on 2025. Net interest income has stopped growing and fees are now doing the heavy lifting.
Novo Banco reported on Wednesday, which finally closes the book on the Portuguese banking half-year. The five largest banks operating in the country made €2,519 million between January and June, against €2,607.8 million in the same period of 2025. That is €88.8 million less, a fall of 3.4%.
This is not a bad half. It is a less spectacular half than the one before it, and the difference between those two things tends to disappear in headlines.
CGD, which turns 150 this year, is still the biggest earner at €913 million, up 2.2%. BCP, the largest private bank, grew fastest: €565.8 million, up 12.7%. On the other side of the ledger Novo Banco fell 15.6% to €367.2 million, Santander Totta dropped 13.9% to €434 million, and BPI closed the half on €239 million, down 13%. Two up, three down.
Where the growth stopped
In net interest income — the gap between what banks charge on loans and what they pay on deposits. It came to €4,408 million for the half, essentially flat at minus 0.4%. It rose at only two of the five, BCP and Novo Banco.
This is falling interest rates doing precisely what everyone expected them to do. For three years rising rates filled that line almost effortlessly. The effect has now reversed, and the number no longer moves on its own.
What held the results up was fees, which rose at all five banks and reached €1,346 million, up 5.3%. Put plainly: once rates stop doing the work, what customers pay for account maintenance, transfers, cards and insurance starts to matter a great deal more to the bottom line.
These five institutions account for more than 80% of the Portuguese banking system, which makes the aggregate a fair reading of the whole sector rather than five isolated cases. The full supervisory data lands later at the Banco de Portugal, with the detail that individual results statements never quite give you.
By Beatriz Mota
Image: GualdimG / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
