Spanish bank BBVA expects its dividend against 2022 results to significantly exceed the €0.31 per share dividend paid against 2021, Chairman Carlos Torres said in a message posted on the Spanish bank's website on Monday.

"If we take into account the profit expected by the consensus for the year as a whole, and the 'payout' policy (percentage of profits allocated dividend) of 40% to 50% established, we expect this year's dividend to far exceed last year's dividend of 31 euro cents, which was already the highest cash dividend we have paid in the last decade," Torres said.

In October, BBVA paid an interim cash dividend against its 2022 results of €0.12 ($0.1160) per share, a 50% increase compared to the interim dividend paid in October 2021.

The interim dividend came from a net profit of €3 billion in the first half of 2022, driven by strong revenue performance from lending and its main market, Mexico.

Analysts expect BBVA's net profit in 2022 as a whole to amount to €6.2 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

In 2021, Spain's second-largest bank by market capitalization posted a net profit of €4.65 billion.

(Report by Jesús Aguado; edited in Spanish by Tomás Cobos)