Growth in Bigbank loan portfolio in Q1 led by Estonian business unit and Lithuanian subsidiary

Bigbank’s loan portfolio grew by 8.3 million euros in the first three months of 2018, led by its Estonian business unit and Lithuanian subsidiary. The bank’s profit in Q1 was 5.2 million euros, with a balance sheet total at the end of the quarter of 451 million euros.

“This year we’re forging ahead with the implementation of our strategy and primarily focussing on increasing our operating loan portfolio,” explained Chairman of the Management Board Sven Raba. “Profits have risen thanks first and foremost to us successfully following of the strategy we’ve adopted, which is to focus on the client group with a low credit risk. Among our subsidiaries our Estonian business unit deserves special mention – their results have seen a marked improvement. What stands out where Estonia’s concerned is the volume of loans being issued to business clients, which has jumped enormously. And apart from here on our home market we’ve recorded continuous growth in Lithuania as well.”

At the technological level, Bigbank continued to develop its new core system Nest during Q1. Launched in 2017 as a pilot project in the bank’s Finnish subsidiary, where it is already operating as a fully functional platform, the system will shortly be ready for adoption in the bank’s Swedish subsidiary as well. The development plan for the platform has the public launch scheduled for the start of July, as a result of which existing and new clients in Sweden will also be able to start using the fully automated, user-friendly and very convenient loan service it provides.

Bigbank’s profit in Q1 2018 was 5.2 million euros. Compared to the same period in 2017, net profit grew by 2.1 million euros or 67.7%. The group’s volume of assets at the end of Q1 was 451 million euros, a decrease of 8.3 million euros or 1.8% over the quarter.

Bigbank’s loan portfolio is dispersed – the average balance of loans is 2935 euros, while the 40 largest loan claims formed 6.3% of the portfolio at the end of the quarter.

The group had a total of 139,000 loan agreements at the end of Q1: 56,000 in Latvia; 32,000 in Estonia; 27,000 in Lithuania; 11,000 in Finland; 9000 in Sweden; and 4000 in Spain. The geographic division of claims before clients was 27.3% in Lithuania, 23.4% in Latvia, 18% in Finland, 17.3% in Estonia, 9.6% in Sweden and 4.4% in Spain.