Lender Itau Unibanco reports higher profit, credit acceleration

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil's Itau Unibanco, Latin America's largest private lender, on Tuesday posted second-quarter profit that was up 15.2% from a year earlier, boosted by higher revenues and lower cost of credit.

Itau posted a 10.07 billion real net recurring profit ($1.8 billion) for the quarter ended in June, slightly more than the 9.99 billion reais estimated by analysts polled by LSEG.

Return on equity, a gauge of profitability, stood at 22.4%, up from 20.9% a year earlier.

Although net profit was mostly in line with estimates, analysts welcomed the results.

"An overall healthy print by Itau Unibanco," analysts at Citi said in a note. "The bank maintains strong momentum across the board and continues accumulating capital, which should bode well for investors' total returns in the mid-term."

Itau's main rivals Bradesco and Santander Brasil have both reported net income above market expectations.

Itau's net recurring profit increase was helped by a 6.4% annual rise in net interest income, a measure of loans minus deposit costs and its largest source of revenue.

The performance was boosted by a nearly 6% rise in the bank's credit portfolio from the previous quarter to 1.25 trillion reais, with Itau accelerating credit growth following recent mild quarters.

The bank in the last two years has implemented a strategy to revise the credit given to highly indebted customers, which slowed its portfolio growth, but executives had said Itau would now start to accelerate credit again to reach its 2024 guidance.

Analysts at J.P. Morgan called it a "good" quarter, highlighting loan growth acceleration. "Consistency continues to summarize Itau with another good quality result," they wrote.

Itau's delinquency rate for loans more than 90 days overdue came in at 2.7%, in line with the previous quarter and 0.3 percentage point down year-on-year.

Itau's net recurring profit also benefited from its cost of credit, which fell almost 7% from a year earlier to 8.8 billion reais.

Itau maintained its 2024 guidance.

($1 = 5.6572 reais)

(Reporting by Andre Romani; Editing by Kylie Madry, Sarah Morland, David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)