Greece's Alpha Bank swings to profit in 2022 on lower impairments

ATHENS (Reuters) - Alpha Bank ACBr.AT, Greece's third-largest lender by market value, reported a net profit last year after a loss in 2021 on lower loan impairment provisions.

Alpha Bank, which is 9% owned by Greece's HFSF bank rescue fund, reported net earnings of 398 million euros ($427.37 million) versus a loss of 2.9 billion euros in 2021.

Loan-loss provisions dropped 23% year-on-year to 288 million euros.

Alpha's accelerated efforts to clean up its balance sheet from bad loans last year reduced its Non Performing Exposure (NPE) ratio to 7.8% from 13.1% in 2021. Its stock of non-performing exposures is now at 3.1 billion euros, down by 2 billion euros year-on-year.

Greek banks have been working to reduce a pile of non-performing credit, the legacy of a decade-long financial crisis that shrank the economy by a quarter.

Alpha's net interest income reduced by 3.8% year-on-year in 2022 to 1.32 billion euros.

($1 = 0.9313 euros)

(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)