($1 = 0.9186 euros) (Reporting by Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich, Writing by Miranda Murray, Editing by Friederike Heine)
BERLIN, March 23 (Reuters) - Austria's central bank will
not distribute a profit to the federal government for the first
time in decades after breaking even last year, the bank said in
its annual result on Thursday.
To keep losses from writedowns on securities and foreign
currencies and security price differences neutral, the bank
released 1.93 billion euros ($2.10 billion) from risk provisions
to report a business result of 0 euros in 2022, it said.
For comparison, the bank had distributed 57 million euros to
the federal government in 2021. A bank spokesperson said the
last time profit distribution was cancelled was "decades ago."
The interest rate turnaround as well as market and exchange
rate developments weighed heavily on the bank's income
statement, OeNB director Thomas Steiner said in a statement.
At the end of last year, total assets fell for the first
time since 2014, declining 5% to 261 billion euros due mainly to
the lower volume of longer-term refinance transactions, it said.
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