Intesa Sanpaolo beats expectations: €7.6 billion profit in the first nine months, driven by fees

The bank led by Carlo Messina has outperformed market forecasts, closing the first nine months of 2025 with solid results. Fees are rising, net interest income is declining, and costs are slightly down.

Intesa Sanpaolo reported a net profit of €7.6 billion for the first nine months of 2025, up 5.9% from the €7.2 billion recorded in the same period of the previous year. The result exceeded market expectations and was supported by the strong performance of fee income.

In the third quarter, the group posted a profit of €2.4 billion, in line with the figure from the third quarter of 2024 and only slightly below the €2.6 billion achieved in the second quarter of this year.

On the revenue side, net interest income came in at €11.1 billion, down 6.8% from €11.9 billion in the first nine months of 2024, while net fees grew 5.1% to €7.3 billion. The increase was driven by asset management, intermediation, and advisory activities, which rose 8.6%, including a 30.2% surge in the intermediation and placement of securities and a 4.1% increase in insurance products. The component related to asset management remained essentially stable (-0.1%).

The result from insurance activities rose to €1.37 billion, up from €1.31 billion in the same period of 2024. Net operating income remained virtually unchanged at €20.43 billion, while operating costs fell slightly by 0.4% to €7.96 billion.

As a result, operating margin stood at €12.48 billion, a slight increase (+0.2%) compared with €12.45 billion in the first nine months of 2024, confirming the bank’s solidity and its ability to maintain strong margins even in a context of declining interest rates.

Andrea Pelucchi