Unlisted cooperative bank Rabobank booked net profit of €1.3bn over the first six months of this year, down 29% on the year-earlier period.

The bank said difficult market conditions were behind the decline which forced a €478m write-off on the bank’s property portfolio.
Private sector lending was up 3%, rising to €462bn which ‘was fully attributable to the acquisition of Friesland Bank’, Rabobank said.
Rabobank is one of a number of Dutch financial institutions currently under investigation by government officials in connection with the Libor interest rate scandal. In the earnings statement, Rabobank said it ‘will not comment on the regulatory investigations since these are ongoing matters that have not reached a conclusion’.