Profit at Switzerland's largest cantonal lender edged higher last year amid a surge in trading and modest credit losses.
Zurich's cantonal bank, or ZKBs, net profit rose to 865 million Swiss francs ($972 million), from 845 million francs the prior year, it said in a statement on Friday. Income from trading surged by nearly 44 percent while commissions and fees also perked up.
Losses against loan defaults stood at 39 million francs. The bank, a spearhead of a Swiss government-backstopped lending bonanza when the pandemic hit last year, said it will pay out 456 million francs to the government of Zurich.
Strong Internal Candidate
ZKB had showered its owners with 506 million francs last year, which marked its 150th. It will also pay the canton 23 million to compensate for a state guarantee.
The Zurich-based bank said it took on 22.1 billion francs in net money, which along with its existing assets gaining in value due to financial market swings, underpinned a nine percent rise in its overall assets to 362 billion francs.
ZKB had last year poached Credit Suisse veteran Florence Schnydrig-Moser to run its private banking arm; she is viewed as the only plausible internal candidate to succeed CEO Martin Scholl, who has been in the job since 2007, as finews.com reported.
