Santander posts rise in profit as Brazil makes up for poor UK figures

Profit in the UK slumped by 14.7 per cent in the year

Santander said net profit for the full year across all regions was €6.2bn (Getty)

Spain’s Banco Santander posted a 4 per cent rise in 2016 profit on Wednesday, thanks to a robust performance in its Brazilian business offsetting lacklustre figures out of Britain.

The bank said that profit in the UK, its second biggest market, slumped by 14.7 per cent in the year, hit by the introduction of an 8 per cent bank corporation tax surcharge and the falling pound since the UK’s referendum on European Union membership in June.

In sharp contrast, the group’s profit in Brazil increased by 9.5 per cent despite what Santander described as a “backdrop of a complex macroeconomic environment”.

Overall, net profit for the full year across all regions was €6.2bn, narrowly beating the average analyst estimate in a Thomson Reuters poll.

“Going forward, we have many opportunities for profitable growth in Europe and the Americas, in an environment we anticipate will be volatile but generally better than 2016,” Ana Botín, the bank’s executive chairman, said in a statement.

The bank’s so-called common equity tier 1 ratio, a metric closely watched by regulators, increased by 50 basis points in the year to 10.55 per cent.

Santander also reiterated its outlook for next year and said that it aims to raise that ratio to 11 per cent.