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Bloomberg
The biggest market sell-off in more than six years isn’t denting BNP Paribas SA’s confidence, with the French bank saying that it may
exceed its 2020 profitability target as Europe’s economic expansion takes hold.
An improving interest-rate environment is likely to support growth, France’s largest lender said as it reported fourth-quarter profit and trading results mostly in line with analysts’ estimates, though corporate banking did less well than expected because of higher one-off loan loss provisions.
While BNP didn’t provide details, banks such as UBS Group AG reported similar losses because of their exposure to Steinhoff International Holdings NV.
BNP Paribas announced 2020 targets last year, before Emmanuel Macron won the French presidency and vowed to help business and loosen labor laws, and said it’s aiming for return on equity to surpass its 10 percent target for 2020. Macron’s reforms may give more fuel to an economy that expanded in 2017 at the fastest pace in six years, helping French banks boost lending volumes and partly offsetting historically low interest rates.