PBB's pre-tax profit rose to €56m, up from €42m in Q2 2016.

The European specialist bank has also exceeded 2016's half-year figure, recording €103m in H1 2017, compared with €87m in H1 2016.

The bank's performance was driven by a positive development of net interest and commission income, which totalled €105m in Q2 2017 and €211m in H1 2017 (Q2 2016: €94m, H1 2016: €198m).

New business rose to €5bn in H1 2017, slightly exceeding the volume of H1 2016 (€4.7bn).

In commercial real estate finance, PBB originated €4.5bn of new business in H1 2017 with around half of the volume generated in Germany and another 40% in other core markets, including the United Kingdom (13%), the US (11%), central and eastern Europe (10%) and France (9%).

Following on from the results for H1 2017, PBB now expects pre-tax profit in the full year of 2017 to be at the upper end or slightly above the guidance of €150m-170m, which the specialist bank had stated at the start of the year.

“Relatively stable margins in our client business and reduced funding costs produced a positive performance for net interest and commission income in the first half of the year,” said Andreas Arndt, CEO at PBB.

“Against this background, PBB is well on track.

“Material challenges that PBB – as with the industry as a whole – continues to face are the competitive situation and fiercer regulation, inciting higher costs and risk-weighted assets.”