FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - Commerzbank will present its figures for the third quarter this Wednesday (7:00 a.m.) and provide detailed information on its strategy for the coming years. Thanks to the rapid rise in interest rates, business has been significantly better in recent months than a year ago. In the first half of 2023, the Frankfurt-based DAX-listed company earned around 1.15 billion euros on the bottom line, almost 50 percent more than a year earlier.

Analysts assume that the positive trend has continued: they expect an average surplus of 611 million euros for the three months from July to September inclusive. In the same period last year, Commerzbank's profit slumped to 195 million euros.

In 2022 as a whole, the bank, whose largest shareholder is the German state, generated a good 1.4 billion euros in net profit, the highest figure since 2007. For the current year, the Management Board headed by Group CEO Manfred Knof is aiming for significantly more. The bank announced at the end of September that profits are set to increase further in the coming years, and with them the dividend payments to shareholders./ben/DP/stw