Tidjane Thiam, chief executive officer of Credit Suisse, speaks during an earnings news conference in Zurich, Switzerland, on April 24, 2019.

Credit Suisse beat market expectations with its latest earnings on Thursday, posting a 69% increase in annual net income despite the spying scandal that emerged during 2019.

The Swiss lender reported a net income of 3.4 billion Swiss francs ($3.48 billion) for 2019. For the final quarter of the year, the Swiss bank posted a net income of 852 million Swiss francs.

Analysts had estimated a net income of 838.5 million Swiss francs for the fourth quarter and 3.2 billion Swiss francs for the year.

Here are some other highlights for the year:

Net revenues reached 22.4 billion Swiss francs, vs 20.9 billion Swiss francs in 2018.

Operating expenses rose 1% from 2018 to 17.4 billions Swiss francs.

Return on tangible equity hit 9% in 2019, vs 5% in 2018.

Its CET1 ratio stood at 12.7%, vs 12.6% at the end of 2018.

"We have started the year strongly across all of our divisions, and as a result, are cautiously optimistic about the prospects for the year ahead," the bank said in a statement.

Credit Suisse also said it wants to grow its revenues in wealth management in 2020, increase profitability further and keep "cost discipline."

The bank is proposing a cash dividend of 0.2776 Swiss francs per share for the financial year of 2019. Credit Suisse shares are up by 12% over the past year.