PARIS (Reuters) - France's Credit Agricole reported a 8.9% rise in quarterly net income on Friday, with its investment bank posting its highest third-quarter revenue since 2016.
Credit Agricole, which is the last of France's biggest banks to publish results, outperformed its peers - Societe Generale <SOGN.PA> and Natixis <CNAT.PA> - in revenue growth at its investment bank.
France's second-largest listed bank said that underlying revenue from capital markets and investment banking increased sharply, up by 21.6% and driven by "strong commercial activity across almost all product lines," as well as an upturn in advisory transactions.
"Securitisation, bond issues help our clients get financing on the market. So we had some good business volumes on these two types of activity," chief financial officer Jerome Grivet told journalists.
Net profit rose to 1.20 billion euros ($1.33 billion), broadly in line with expectations for 1.14 billion euros, according to a Reuters survey of four analysts. Revenue rose by 4.8% to 5.0 billion euros.
Revenue at its French retail bank, LCL, were steady in a low interest rate environment, as the lender grew loans by 9.2 percent in the third quarter.
($1 = 0.9054 euros)
(Reporting by Maya Nikolaeva, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
