Rabobank's profits plummet due to Cofid-19 crisis

Rabobank saw its profits largely evaporate in the first two quarters of 2020. The bank attributes this mainly to the coronavirus crisis, and money it had to set aside to cover bad loans from customers in financial trouble, according to figures Rabobank released on Thursday.

Rabobank pushed another 1 billion euros into its rainy day fund - money set aside to cope with disappointing results and bad loans. This reserve fund now contains a total of 1.442 billion euros. Like other banks, Rabobank also had to write down various assets, that lost value or yielded less than expected due to the coronavirus crisis.

And as a result, the bank's profits for the first half of the year amounted to 227 million euros, compared o 1.21 billion euros in the first half of 2019. Rabobank's turnover in the first half of 2020 amounted to 5.2 billion euros, 8 percent less than the 5.7 billion euros in the same period last year.

The coming period will still be marked by uncertainty for the bank, as it is not yet clear how the pandemic will develop, Wiebe Draijer, chairman of the bank's managing board said.

"In line with our mission of Growing a better world together, we will continue to help our customers weather this crisis. However, even the generous government support measures and our own initiatives will not be enough or everyone. We will see the impact of Covid-19 reflected in our full year results for 2020 and we will remain focused on our costs."