MADRID (Reuters) – Caixabank reported better-than-expected third-quarter net profit on Friday, up 18.8% from a year earlier, driven by loans, fees and insurance business.

Spain’s largest bank by assets had a net profit of 884 million euros for the July-September period. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected 810 million euros.

Caixabank’s net interest income, the difference between what it pays for deposits and what it earns for loans, rose 6.2% year-on-year to 1.687 billion euros in the third quarter, thanks to the rise in interest rates. This figure also exceeded analysts’ forecasts of 1.65 billion euros.

In the first nine months of the year, however, lending revenue fell by 0.4% compared to the same period the previous year.

(Writing by Jesús Aguado; French version Elena Smirnova, Editing by Kate Entringer)