The steep losses incurred by Banco Comercial Português dragged down the final earnings tally of the four biggest Portuguese private banks for the first half of 2012, financial newspaper Jornal de Negócios reports on Tuesday 31 July.

The earnings of BPI, BES and Santander Totta – worth a combined €173.1m – “were not enough to make up for” BCP’s losses of €544m in the first six months of the year mainly due to provisions made to cover for possible losses in its Greek operation, Jornal de Negócios writes.

Together, the losses of the four banks totaled €218m, said the newspaper.

Banks’ earnings suffered the impact of provisions made to “make up for non-performing loans” that amounted to €1,500m in the four banks.

BES president: “I hope we have good news” about Portugal’s bailout success

Meanwhile, during BES’ earnings presentation, the bank’s president Ricardo Salgado was positive about Portugal’s prospective return to the markets in late 2013 and praised current Minister of Finance Vítor Gaspar.

“We have the most rigorous finance minister of the last few years”, said Salgado, quoted by newspaper Público.

“I believe that we will return to the markets in 2013 if we manage to keep this dynamic in public accounts”, he also said, quoted by financial website Dinheiro Vivo, praising the recent Bank of Portugal‘s 2012 trade balance surplus forecast.

“But it depends on the markets”, Salgado added, as those are currently “out of control”, he said, according to DV.