ING and Commerzbank lose while SocGen gains

Europe's largest banks, ING and Commerzbank, reported losses while Societe Generale that saw the worst stock and bond markets in more than a half century has gained a profit during the fourth quarter.

ING, the Dutch bank and insurer, has bore the greatest losses that amounted 3.71-billion-euro after the company posted a 2.48 billion euros profit in the previous quarter. It should be mentioned, the company saw write-offs and impairments of 3 billion euros. However, in January ING had received a Dutch government backstop on its portfolio of Alt-A mortgage-backed securities, and the government took on about 80% of the losses. The company plans to cut expenses by 1 billion euros this year. Moreover, it is going to decrease bank's balance sheet 10% against the end of September level and stated it wasn’t sure of its capabilities to pay dividends.

German Commerzbank’s losses rose to 809 million euros in the fourth quarter, while a year earlier it was 201 million euros. It took a 674-million-euro hit in the final quarter from trading, with the bank also suffering from its exposure to securitized U.S. real-estate loans.

French Societe Generale has announced it had gained 87 million euros, after bearing a 3.35-billion-euro loss a year earlier. Specialists state the main reason to this is that the last year Jerome Kerviel was alleged to have lost the bank 4.9 billion euros through rogue trading. The bank had avoided a 1.5-billion-euro loss through shifting 28.6 billion euros of assets from its trading book onto its loan book. SocGen has declared it was paying dividends. Moreover, the dividends are expected to raise to 1.20 euros a share from 0.90 euros per share.