Rabobank: Coronavirus will have "significant" impact on 2020 profits

Rabobank expects that the coronavirus crisis will have a "significant" impact on the bank's profits for 2020. Income will be lower and the bank thinks it will have to set aside about 2 billion euros for bad loans, more than double the bank set aside last year, Rabobank said in an update on Wednesday, RTL NIeuws reports.

Partly due to the persistently low interest rates, Rabobank expects that its income will be lower. Add to that the coronavirus crisis leaving a large portion of the banks' clients in financial trouble, and Rabobank expects to not come close to last year's 2.2 billion euros in net profit.

The bank expects to set aside 2.2 billion euros this year for loans that can't be repaid. Last year Rabobank set aside 975 million euros for this purpose.

According to Rabobank, it is too early to be more concrete about this year's expected results.

ABN Amro and ING both reported significant losses in the first quarter of this year. Both also attributed this largely to money set aside for bad loans due to the coronavirus crisis.