Croatian Commercial Banks' 9-mo Pre-Tax Profit Rises 26.7%

Zagrebacka Banka (ZABA), a subsidiary of Italian banking group UniCredit, ranked first with pre-tax profit of 1.524 billion kuna for the nine months through Sepetmber.

Privredna Banka Zagreb (PBZ), majority-owned by another Italian banking group, Intesa Sanpaolo, was runner-up with 1.044 billion kuna.

Erste and Steiermaerkische Bank (ESB), a subsidiary of Austria's Erste Bank, placed third with a pre-tax profit of some 766.5 million kuna.

Assets held by the nation's commercial banks totalled 354.3 billion kuna as of end-September, up from 341.1 billion kuna a year earlier.

ZABA also led the Croatian market in terms of assets, followed by PBZ and ESB.

There were 33 commercial banks operating in the country of 4.4 million people as of September 30. Five of them - Banka Kovanica, Nava, Primorska, Vaba and Veneto Banka, marked pre-tax losses in January to September.

(1 euro = 7.1135 Croatian kuna)