Finnish-headquartered banking group Nordea has turned around shipping loan losses in the fourth quarter.
It said shipping, offshore and oil services logged a reversal of 20 basis points (bps) to 31 December, against losses of 13 bps in the same period of 2017.
Net loan losses were EUR 30m ($34m) for the bank as a whole, down from EUR 71m a year ago.
Interest income edged up to EUR 1.12bn from EUR 1.1bn, while net profit was cut to EUR 492m from EUR 629m.
"Our expectation for the coming quarters is that net losses will remain low and around the average level for 2018," it said.
"Credit quality remained solid," it added. The overall loan loss ratio decreased to 5 bps.
Losses were partly due to large provisions for two corporate customers in the retail segment, off-set by lowered management judgement related to the better outlook on US sanctions towards Russia.
"Brexit is expected to have a limited impact on the credit losses for Nordea," it said.
CEO Casper von Koskull added: “2018 has been characterised by key deliveries in our transformation journey: Nordea is now a more focused, simpler and resilient bank – operating in the banking union – with a much improved risk and compliance platform following considerable investments.
"At the same time, the results for 2018 are not where we want them to be, featuring a challenging revenue development; driven by margin pressure in household lending, muted volume growth, and pressure on savings and market making revenues."
