Bigbank’s loan portfolio grows by 44.1 million euros in 9 months

Bigbank’s loan portfolio grew by 11.9% or 44.1 million euros in the first three quarters of 2018, of which 19.2 million euros represents growth in Q3. The biggest growth was posted by the bank’s Lithuanian branch and its Estonian business unit.

The bank’s net profit for Q3 was 4.6 million euros, growing to 15 million euros in the first nine months of the year, compared to 2.2 million euros in the same period last year i.e. growth of 17.5%. Bigbank’s balance sheet total increased to 512.2 million euros, growing by 46 million euros or 9.9% during the quarter.

“Our strong financial results are primarily down to successfully growing our operating loan portfolio and reducing our dormant portfolio, which means the overall loan portfolio is of higher quality and the results of the bank as a whole are better,” explained Chairman of the Management Board of Bigbank AS Sven Raba.

“The third quarter was marked out by two key events,” Raba said. “The first was Jonna Pechter coming aboard as manager of the bank’s Estonian business unit in September, whose wealth of experience in other local banks means we’re even more on top of what’s happening on the domestic market, and that will help us further boost the quality of the services we’re offering our clients. The other big event, or achievement really as we see it, was the launch of our joint loan product with Lithuania’s biggest car sales portal Autoplius.”

Lithuanian clients can apply for Autoplius loans directly from the portal, the processing of which is fully automated. “The number of clients we served in the first month alone, the feedback we’ve received and the sales figures exceeding what we’d planned show that Lithuanian clients have really taken to this new approach,” Raba said.

At the end of Q3 the group had a total of 130,000 loan agreements: 48,000 in Latvia; 31,000 in Estonia; 27,000 in Lithuania; 11,000 in Finland; 10,000 in Sweden; and 3000 in Spain. The group has three customer service offices: one in Estonia, one in Latvia and one in Spain. At the end of Q3 2018 Bigbank had 434 employees: 233 in Estonia; 87 in Latvia; 74 in Lithuania; 19 in Finland; 12 in Spain; and nine in Sweden.

Bigbank AS (www.bigbank.ee) is an Estonian-owned special bank that 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]

Telephone: +372 668 1333