November 24 (SeeNews) - Croatia's banks, including savings banks, posted a combined pre-tax profit of 1.96 billion kuna ($316.7 million/255.5 million euro) in the first nine moths of 2014, provisional unaudited data from the country's central bank showed.
A year earlier, preliminary central bank data showed that Croatian lenders, including savings banks, posted a combined nine-month pre-tax profit of 2.1 billion kuna.
The combined total assets of the local banks amounted to 399.7 billion kuna at the end of September 2014 versus an audited 397.9 billion kuna at the end of December 2013, central bank data showed.
A total of 10 local banks were loss-makers in the first nine months of 2014, down from 13 a year earlier.
Zagrebacka Banka [ZSE:ZABA-R-A] was Croatia's top performer in the review period with a pre-tax profit of 1.0 billion kuna, data from the central bank showed. It was followed by Privredna Banka Zagreb [ZSE:PBZ-R-A] and Raiffeisen Bank Austria with pre-tax profits of 640.99 million kuna and 358.2 million kuna, respectively.
Among the loss-makers, Hrvatska Postanska Banka [ZSE:HPB-R-A] led the way with a pre-tax loss of 411.4 million kuna in the nine months through September. Jadranska Banka [ZSE:JDBA-R-A] came in second with a pre-tax loss of 79.6 million kuna followed by Nava Banka with 53 million kuna.
In July, the country's central bank petitioned a local court to open insolvency proceedings against Nava Banka.
Over the review period, 30 banks and savings banks operated in Croatia, a country of 4.3 million.
(1 euro=7.6709 Croatian kuna)