Almost a year on from selling its Asian and Middle East private banking operations, the Dutch lender reported a broadly stronger set of financial results for the third quarter.

ABN AMRO, the Netherlands-listed group that provides services including private banking in Europe, yesterday logged an 11 per cent year-on-year gain in reported profit in the third quarter of this year, standing at €673 million ($781 million).

Operating income dipped 4 per cent over the year, coming in at €2.123 billion, as divestment of certain business lines affected results, the bank said in a statement.

The bank late last year sold its private banking operations in Asia and the Middle East to Liechtenstein-headquartered LGT. ABN AMRO, which had been bailed out by the Dutch state amid the 2008 financial crisis and which has since restructured operations, has refocused its private banking attentions on its home European markets.

“Costs are trending down as the benefits from the IT transformation programme and cost-saving programmes are coming through. Over the first nine months of the year, the cost/income ratio improved to 57.3 per cent (9M 2016: 61.8 per cent) and the return on equity increased to 15.7 per cent (9M 2016: 13.4 per cent), also benefiting from the gain on the sale of private banking Asia and low impairments,” Kees van Dijkhuizen, chief executive, said in the statement.

The bank’s fully-loaded CET 1 Ratio, which is an internationally recognised yardstick of a bank’s “buffer capital” to cope with shocks, rose to 17.6 per cent in Q3 this year, from 16.6 per cent a year ago, the lender said.