Spanish banking group Santander, which owns private banking operations in the UK and other countries, said its profit for the first half of this year rose to €4.73 billion ($7.35 billion) from €3.876 billion a year before.

Net operating income for the first half was €8.853 billion, up from €7.048 billion, Santander said. The Spanish bank, along with Dutch-Belgian bank Fortis and Royal Bank of Scotland, bought the Dutch banking group ABN Amro last year.

Total managed funds at Santander group level stood at €1.051 trillion, a drop from €1.07 trillion in the same first half period a year ago.

Among the group’s private banking segment, it recorded a pre-tax profit of €234 million, up by 10.1 per cent on the same period last year. The private banking arm contains UK businesses such as Cater Allen, Abbey Sharedealing and James Hay, as well as Banif in Spain, Santander Private Banking in Latin America and Italy, and domestic private banking units in Portugal and Latin America.

Assets under management at the private banking group were €109 billion, a 1 per cent drop from the end of last year, Santander said. Assets were hit by falling markets and the fall in the value of the dollar against the euro.