Bigbank issues more than 140 million euros in loans in first 6 months of 2018

Bigbank’s loan portfolio grew by 28.3 million euros or 7.7% in the first half of 2018. The biggest growth was posted by its Swedish subsidiary, with the main driver for this growth being the group’s record half-year loan sales.

During the first six months of the year loan sales amounted to 140.7 million euros, 77.9 million euros of which were issued in Q2. The group’s net profit for the first half of the year was 10.4 million euros, of which 5.2 million was profit for Q2.

“We continued to implement our strategy during the first half of the year, and one of our aims in doing so was to increase our operating loan portfolio,” explained Chairman of the Management Board Sven Raba. “The bank’s profit margin has primarily grown thanks to us focussing on clients with a low credit risk, which has not only allowed us to boost our operating loans but also reduce loan losses. That’s led to a gradual decrease in interest rates, which does have an impact on what we earn from interest, but the reduction in losses from our loans has been much bigger than the drop-off in interest revenue. To put it another way, our focus at the moment is on issuing loans with increasingly lower interest rates to clients who are both willing and able to repay them within the term provided.”

Raba added that preparations for the adoption of the bank’s new core system Nest in Sweden were completed during Q2. “It’s now fully operational and has been a real success,” he said. “We’ll be continuing to adopt it in other countries throughout Q3. We developed it in cooperation with Icefire, and last year it was voted one of the world’s 10 best banking technology development projects in the Best Tech Overhaul category at the Banking Technology Awards.”

The volume of assets of the Bigbank AS group as at 30 June 2018 was 466.2 million euros, with an increase of 15.2 million euros or 3.4% during Q2. The group had a total of 135,000 loan agreements at the end of the quarter: 52,000 in Latvia; 31,000 in Estonia; 27,000 in Lithuania; 11,000 in Finland; 10,000 in Sweden; and 4000 in Spain. At the end of Q2 2018 Bigbank had 426 employees: 224 in Estonia, 80 in Latvia, 76 in Lithuania, 17 in Finland, 15 in Sweden and 14 in Spain.

The Supervisory Board of Bigbank AS has five members: Raul Eamets, Juhani Jaeger, Andres Koern, Vahur Voll and chairman Parvel Pruunsild. Its Management Board has four members: Pāvels Gilodo, Martin Länts, Mart Veskimägi and chairman Sven Raba.

Bigbank AS (www.bigbank.ee) is an Estonian-owned special bank which focusses on consumer loans and fixed-term deposits. In addition to its operations in Estonia it has subsidiaries in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania and Spain and offers its products as cross-border services in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands.

For further information please contact:

Sven Raba, Chairman of the Management Board, Bigbank AS

E-mail: [email protected]