European bank merchants provide the best results in more than a decade

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Merchants of the largest investment banks in Europe gave their highest quarterly revenues in at least a decade, after Trump -induced volatility in financial markets caused a frenzy of activity on both sides of the Atlantic.

UBS, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Barclays and Deutsche Bank, in recent weeks, have reported a combined admission of 13 million euros in revenue for fixed action and revenue between January and March, the highest quarterly quarterly combined for the five lenders since the minimum of 2015.

The performance of European banks reflects the returns of the stellar negotiation published by North -American colleagues during the first three months of the year, with the five largest banks of Wall Street, which obtained almost $ 37 million in commercial income combined during the period.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has published in a period of economic uncertainty, causing wild swings in actions, good and currency markets that have created opportunities for merchants to exploit.

“Market volatility is widely in favor of global market companies for banks, as is the case in the United States,” Slawomir Krupa’s analysts told the CEO of Socgen. “Interruption is manageable for everyone from a macro perspective.”

In the first quarter of 2025 he had a record performance in the divisions of markets of UBS and BNP Paribas. Swiss lender’s commercial income jumped almost a third of $ 2.5 million (2.3 million euros) compared to the same period of the year before, while the largest bank in France recorded a maximum of 2.8 million euros in commercial income during the quarter.

Deutsche Bank, who no longer has a variable income business, and Barclays denounced a 17 percent and 21 percent increase respectively in fixed income, coins and basic products (FICC) compared to the first quarter of 2024, surpassing all Wall Street lenders in percentage gains in FICC during the period.

Socgen’s commercial performance was promoted by his variable income business, where revenue increased more than one fifth of the previous year to 1.06 million euros, while its fixed income division was slightly decreased.

After producing scarce yields and payments from shareholders for much of the last decade, European lenders have seen a change in their fortunes in recent years, with the highest interest rates that increase their net interest revenue: the difference between banks of interest receiving the borrowers and pay to depositors.

However, banks’ commercial divisions have also benefited from market volatility attacks, from Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. It was followed by major market changes in early 2022 after Russia launched its Ukraine invasion and central banks rapidly increased interest rates.

Prior to the most recent quarter, the first three months of 2022 celebrated the crown as a quarter with the highest commercial income of European banks since 2015, with the five banks producing € 12.8 million in combined income during this period. Credit Suisse was also an important player in variable income negotiation and FICC in Europe before its disappearance in 2023.

Sergio Ermotti, CEO of the UBS, said last week that the Swiss lender had seen “a huge rise in client activity and volatility” at the beginning of the second quarter after Trump announced a “reciprocal” rate on April 2, causing a market sale.

“In some days, negotiation volumes exceeded its Covid era peak around 30 percent,” he said, describing the levels of activity as “exceptional strength”.

Andrew Coombs, a cytigroup analyst, said: “This is well (the second quarter) the income of the markets, following the strong actions and the results of the FICC (the first quarter).”

“(Ermotti) confirmed, however, that there is now a degree of fatigue of investors and since then returned to a more standardized negotiation environment,” added Coombs.