Banca Intesa Serbia: €211 million profit in 2025, up 12%

Banca Intesa Serbia, part of Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo group, has published its audited 2025 annual report showing net profit of €211 million (around 24.71 billion RSD). That is a 12% rise on the €188 million booked in 2024.

The bank’s total assets rose to €8.4 billion, up 8.7% on the end of the previous year. Banca Intesa holds the leading position in the Serbian banking market by assets.

Revenue mix

Revenue in 2025 came mainly from three lines. Interest income remains the dominant profit driver, while fee income is growing faster than the net interest margin.

The revenue breakdown:

• Net interest income: €318 million, up 7.4%
• Net fee and commission income: €124 million, up 11.8%
• Trading income on securities: €22 million, up 18.2%
• Operating expenses: €194 million, up 4.3%
• Credit risk provisions: €42 million, down 9.8%

The lower provisioning cost reflects an improved loan portfolio. The NPL ratio dropped from 2.2% to 1.9%, among the lowest in Serbian banking.

Headline profitability ratios

Banca Intesa Serbia chief executive Marko Carevic quantified the ratios at a press conference on 28 May.

Return on equity stands at 14.8 percent, return on assets at 2.5 percent, and the capital adequacy ratio at 22.4 percent, well above the National Bank of Serbia regulatory threshold of 12 percent for systemically important banks.

Carevic set out the loan portfolio contribution.

Mortgage loans extended in 2025 reached 1.28 billion euros, up 18 percent on 2024, while SME loans grew by 14.2 percent to 2.1 billion euros.

Position in the Serbian market

Banca Intesa holds the top market position. The Serbian banking market concentration, based on Association of Serbian Banks data for 2025, breaks down as follows:

• Banca Intesa Serbia: 16.8% of market assets
• OTP banka Srbija: 14.2% (after the Vojvodjanska banka acquisition)
• NLB Komercijalna banka: 12.9%
• UniCredit Banka Srbija: 11.4%
• Erste Bank Serbia: 8.8%
• Raiffeisen banka Srbija: 7.6%
• Other: 28.3%

The five largest banks hold 65.1% of the market, a high concentration typical of smaller European banking systems.

Dividend and capital allocation

The Banca Intesa Serbia shareholders’ meeting, scheduled for 11 June in Belgrade, will vote on the dividend proposal. Management has put forward a payout of €132 million, equivalent to 63% of net profit.

The chief financial analyst at the Securities Commission of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Veljkovic, gave wider context in remarks to biznis.rs on 28 May.

The 132 million euro dividend is one of the largest dividend payouts in the history of Serbian banking, with capital flowing directly to the Intesa Sanpaolo group in Milan and a retained portion of around 79 million euros strengthening the Serbian subsidiary’s capital base.

It is an open question whether the other leading players in the Serbian market will follow a similar dividend strategy in the coming weeks, with NLB and OTP results already out.

Follow the announcement of banking sector results before the shareholders’ meeting for the next update.