August 31 (SeeNews) - Croatia's banks, including savings banks, posted a combined pre-tax profit of 1.48 billion kuna ($219.7 million/195.9 million euro) in the first six months of 2015, provisional unaudited data from the country's central bank showed on Monday.
A year earlier, preliminary central bank data showed that Croatian lenders, including savings banks, posted a combined pre-tax profit of 1.57 billion kuna.
The combined total assets of the local banks amounted to 396.1 billion kuna at the end of June versus an audited 395.2 billion kuna at the end of December 2014, central bank data showed.
A total of six local banks were loss-makers in the first half of 2015, down from 10 a year earlier.
Privredna Banka Zagreb [ZSE:PBZ-R-A] was Croatia's top performer in the review period with a pre-tax profit of 572.3 million kuna, the data from the central bank showed. It was followed by Zagrebacka Banka [ZSE:ZABA-R-A] and Raiffeisen Bank Austria with a pre-tax profit of 490.9 million kuna and 216.9 million kuna, respectively.
Among the loss-makers, Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank led the way with a pre-tax loss of 173 million kuna in the six months through June. OTP Banka Hrvatska came in second with a pre-tax loss of 20.75 million kuna followed by Sberbank with 13.7 million kuna.
Over the review period, 28 banks and savings banks operated in Croatia, a country of 4.3 million.
(1 euro=7.556 Croatian kuna)