SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian lender Itau Unibanco Holding SA on Monday reported a first quarter recurring net income of 7.36 billion reais ($1.45 billion), up 15.1% year on year, driven by higher credit volume as growth in its loan book accelerated.
The figure for the country’s largest bank were in line with an expected 7.35 billion-real net income from analysts polled by Refinitiv.
The bottom line growth came even as loan-loss provisions jumped by 57.8% to 6.998 billion reais, Itau said in a securities filing.
“Our first quarter results show the consistency and sustainability of our performance even in a challenging scenario … We have all the conditions needed to keep an extremely robust balance sheet in 2022,” Chief Financial Officer Alexsandro Broedel said.
($1 = 5.0776 reais)
(Reporting by Gabriel Araujo, Editing by Louise Heavens and Toby Chopra)
