Banesto, the Spanish retail bank, on Wednesday unveiled surprisingly robust second-quarter operating profits but deliberately damped the effect on the bottom line by making voluntary extra provisions of €57m ($79m).

Even after the additional provisioning, Banesto announced better profits than expected by most analysts given the deep economic recession and the collapse of the Spanish housing market, with net profit falling just 14 per cent to €198.7m in the June quarter, from €231.9m a year earlier.