Spain's biggest banks see profits fall 30%

International markets continue to mitigate the deleterious effect domestic markets are having on big Spanish banks. The top seven banks reported that their profits dropped 27.9% in the first half of the year, resulting in net gains of 2.8 billion euros.

For the past two quarters, diversification has been key to fending off greater losses for Santander and BBVA in particular. Santander saw its profits flatten to 28.8% to 500 million euros, while its franchise Banesto also saw profits drop 56.4% to 168 million euros. Despite a slip-up in Great Britain for which the bank had to face 600 million euros of extra provisions that accounted for 21% of its profit losses, earnings registered above 3.5 billion euros by mid-year.

Something similar happened to BBVA, who contained profit losses to 7.5% thanks to business in South American, Eurasia (Turkey and Asia) and Mexico, from whom the firm drew 30% of its profits. Still, firm advisor Angel Cano predicted that during the next quarter the Mexican franchise will produce greater profits its Spanish counterpart.