Spain's BBVA sees significant rise in 2022 dividend, Chairman says

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's BBVA expects its 2022 dividend to significantly top the 0.31 euros dividend per share paid out in 2021, Chairman Carlos Torres said in a post on the Spanish bank's website on Monday.

"If we take the consensus on expected profit for the entire year, and considering our 40 to 50 percent payout policy, we expect the dividend in 2022 to clearly exceed the 0.31 euro dividend from 2021, which was already the highest cash dividend we have paid in the past decade," Torres said.

In October, BBVA paid an interim cash dividend of 0.12 euros ($0.1160) per share from its 2022 results, a 50% increase compared with the interim dividend paid in October 2021.

The interim dividend was backed by a net profit of 3 billion euros in the first half of 2022 lifted up by a strong performance in income from lending and its main market Mexico.

Analysts expect BBVA's 2022 net profit to rise to 6.2 billion euros, according to data from Refinitiv.

In 2021, Spain's second-biggest lender by market value reported a net profit of 4.65 billion euros.

(Reporting by Jesús Aguado, editing by Inti Landauro and Ed Osmond)