SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazilian lender Itau Unibanco on Tuesday reported third-quarter net recurring profit in line with analysts' estimates and raised its projection for 2025 net interest income with the market.
Itau, Latin America's largest private lender by total assets, reported an 11.9 billion reais ($2.20 billion) net recurring profit for the July-September period, matching the expectations of analysts polled by LSEG.
Return on equity stood at 23.3%, increasing 0.6 percentage points from the same
period a year earlier, but stable from the previous quarter.
"Once again, the bank demonstrated its capacity to maintain an already high profitability," Citi analysts led by Gustavo Schroden wrote to clients, noting an "overall solid bottom line."
The lender revised upward its yearly projection for net interest income with the market to between 3 billion reais ($555.2 million) and 3.5 billion reais ($647.7 million), from a previous estimate of between 1 billion and 3 billion reais.
"This revision mostly reflects the more positive dynamics of the trading desk's accumulated results compared to the original expectation," Itau said, adding all other 2025 projections remain unchanged.
Itau's total credit portfolio reached 1.4 trillion reais in the quarter, rising 6.4% year-on-year, while Itau's net interest income increased 10.1% to 31.4 billion reais.
The over-90-day delinquency rate came in at 1.9%, stable quarter-on-quarter, while the rate between 15 and 90 days rose 0.3 percentage points to 2%, with Itau citing the impact of an unnamed large client.
Itau has not been releasing the year-over-year comparison for delinquency rates following a regulatory change on provisions that took effect in Brazil in January.
Itau's rivals Santander Brasil and Bradesco released their third-quarter earnings last week, while Banco do Brasil and Nubank are set to publish results next week.
($1 = 5.4039 reais)
(Reporting by Andre Romani and Paula Arend Laier; Editing by Natalia Siniawski and Chris Reese)
