ZAGREB, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Croatia’s banks, mostly owned by foreign lenders, saw a sharp increase in first-half profit, rising to 3.46 billion kuna ($540.14 million), the central bank said on Monday.
In the same period of 2017 the pretax profit posted by local banks amounted to 1.24 billion kuna, dented by a debt crisis that hit the biggest Croatian private firm Agrokor.
The biggest local bank Zagrebacka Banka, owned by Italy’s Unicredit, which controls 26.6 percent of the market, reported a pretax profit of 1.03 billion kuna.
The second biggest lender with 19.2 percent of the market, Privredna Banka Zagreb, owned by Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo , made a pretax profit of 737.5 million kuna.
The overall assets of Croatia’s banks at the end of June amounted to 395.7 billion kuna.
$1 = 6.4058 kuna Reporting by Igor Ilic
