The French lender said pre-tax income dipped in its wealth and asset management arm in the second quarter of this year from a year earlier, although it was up on the first three months of 2018.

BNP Paribas today reported that pre-tax income at its wealth and asset management arm slipped to €206 million ($241 million) in the three months to the end of June this year from €226 million a year earlier, but gained from €187 million in the previous quarter.

The Paris-listed banking group said wealth and asset management revenues in Q2 were €834 million, up from €760 million a year ago.

Operating expenses totalled €639 million, up 12.8 per cent from the second quarter of 2017; they also rose 10.9 per cent excluding specific transformation projects at asset management and costs related to the acquisition of Strutt & Parker at Real Estate Services.

In the first six months of this year, wealth and asset management’s revenues of €1.630 billion rose by 6.3 per cent compared to the first half 2017.

Assets under management reached €1.060 trillion as at 30 June 2018 (+2.7 per cent compared to 30 June 2017), and up 0.9 per cent compared to 31 December 2017 with a good level of net asset inflows, at €13.4 billion, with strong net asset inflows at wealth management in particular in Asia, France and Italy.

As at 30 June 2018, assets under management broke down as follows: asset management (€419 billion), wealth management (€373 billion), insurance (€240 billion) and real estate services (€29 billion).

Across the banking and financial services group as a whole, revenues totalled €11.206 billion, up by 2.5 per cent compared to the second quarter 2017 which included the one-off impact of -€200 million in Own Credit Adjustment (OCA) and own credit risk included in derivatives (DVA) as well as +€85 million in capital gains from the sale of Euronext shares. Operating costs rose 4.2 per cent in the quarter from a year earlier.

Pre-tax income of €3.453 billion (€3.461 million in the second quarter 2017), fell 0.2 per cent.