Spanish bank BBVA said its first quarter profit fell 12.6% to €1 billion amid provisions to meet criteria on cleaning up bad property loans.
The results from Spain's second biggest bank beat the €912m in profits forecast by analysts and sent the bank's stocks up 2% in Madrid.
On April 17, Spain's central bank approved a plan that requires banks to allocate €29 billion to bad loan provisions.
It also wants €15.6 billion to raise the proportion of rock-solid core capital.
BBVA said its provisions for loan losses and property were stable at €1.3 billion during the quarter. Its net interest income - a measures of its basic banking business, rose meanwhile by 13.3% to €3.6 billion.
The bank's businesses in the emerging markets, which helped it to absorb losses incurred when the property bubble burst in 2008, are also making up for weaker demand in the domestic Spanish market.
While the domestic contribution to BBVA's results was down 52.2% at €229m, the net attributable profit of its Eurasia businesses, including investments in China Citic Bank and Turkey's Garanti, were up 51.7% to €299m.
