The trickle of Q3 results continues with interim numbers released by Société Générale, BNP Paribas, Lloyds and, late in the week, RBS.
SocGen joined the trend to lament spread compression but reported results just 1.5% down on Q2: “In an environment marked by shrinking volumes and margin erosion, Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities generated stable revenues of €656 million...This resilience was helped by the dynamism of the rates activity and the good performance of all activities on emerging underlyings.”
At BNP Paribas there was no mention of lower volumes or narrower margins but, in common with SG, the bank showed a minor fall of 3.7% in Fixed Income revenues over the quarter to €1,211 million. Of course revenues were down more materially, by 37.6% on the numbers for Q3 2009. Again, as with Société Générale, there was no explicit mention of FX performance.
Lloyds also released its interim management statement, but it’s more of the we’ve-done-very-nicely, thank-you variety; that is, largely devoid of meaningful figures. There’s stuff about savings from synergies and balance sheet reduction both being on track and debt issuance being well received. But no hard figures about business performance. Maybe that’ll change under the new fellow.