germanys secondbiggest lender commerzbank on wednesday reported betterthanexpected profits thanks to rising interest rates even as it took a hit from mortgage losses at its polish subsidiary the group said it made a bottomline profit of 195 million euros 196 million in the third quarter down from 403 million a year earlier but the result was significantly better than the 88 million euros analysts surveyed by factset had predicted the groups results were driven by strong customer business and rising interest rates commerzbank said in a statement this enabled the bank to compensate for the high burdens in poland it added commerzbank had warned in september that it would take a roughly 490millioneuro hit in the third quarter to cover losses on foreigncurrency mortgages at polish unit mbank a european court ruling in 2019 found that poles holding crippling foreigncurrency mortgages could renegotiate them entailing serious costs for the bank like other lenders in europe commerzbank is benefitting from a series of interest rate hikes announced by the european central bank to combat recordhigh inflation higher rates make borrowing costs more expensive for households and consumers giving banks a boost after years of ultralow interest rate environments looking ahead commerzbank said it was on track to meet its goal of making a net profit of more than one billion euros this year the outlook is based on the assumptions that there will not be a significant deterioration in the economic situation for example due to potential rationing of natural gas it said commerzbank embarked on a major turnaround in recent years focussed on winning new customers digitisation and reducing its workforce the bank said it had culled 8350 jobs by the end of september and aims to cut another 1100 fulltime positions in the months ahead