Europe’s largest custodian banks have seen increased revenues during the third quarter, with fees from custody and securities services being the driver for earnings.
Societe Generale was the last of the top European banks to report its third quarter results, in which its securities services business reported an increase of 4.4% in revenues to €166 million.
It stated: “the business saw an increase in commissions, particularly on custody and settlement/delivery activity, and benefited from a less unfavourable rate environment”.
Assets under administration also increased nearly 10% to €654 billion, however assets under custody decreased 2% to around €4 trillion.
The results from Societe Generale follow that of its French counterpart, BNP Paribas, where its securities services revenue also rose by 4.2% to €476 million, attributing the improvement to “volume growth and the effect of new mandates”.
Assets under custody and administration increased significantly for BNP Paribas, up by 9.1% and 19.4% to €9.3 trillion and €2.3 trillion respectively.
In addition, HSBC also reported an increase of 8.3% in securities services revenues to around $1.3 billion.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank reported relatively flat revenues from trust, agency and securities services, “as lower transaction volumes due to client and country exits were offset by interest rate increases in the US”.