Ingo Põder starts managing the new area of corporate banking at Bigbank
Bigbank AS will create a cross-group area of corporate banking, which will be managed by Ingo Põder, who has extensive experience in banking and finance and who in addition to Bigbank has worked for Nordea Bank and Hüpoteeklaen AS. Ingo Põder will start managing the new area on 11 June.
“We decided to create a new area in the bank in order to increase our focus on the development of products and services aimed at companies,” said CEO of Bigbank AS Martin Länts. “Until now, we’ve issued loans to companies in Estonia and Lithuania, but this year we started serving corporate clients at our Latvian branch as well.”
“Bigbank is a strong company where I can develop an area that is close to my heart,” said Ingo Põder. “The macroeconomic situation and outlook in the world are still positive, which means that the markets haven’t cooled down and companies need more financing and new loan products. At present, there are two corporate loan products in the portfolio of Bigbank, which are credit line and working capital loan, but we’re planning to expand our product portfolio considerably in the near future.”
“Small and medium-sized companies are currently in a less favourable situation than large companies, because there is a shortage of banks on the market who would be primarily interested in financing the projects and plans of such companies,” added Põder. “The great growth potential of the give sector is discussed in Estonia as well as the rest of the world. I started working in corporate banking more than a decade ago and the most important changes during this time have occurred in relation to technology. Bigbank is developing a modern banking information system Nest, which gives us the option and advantage to offer our clients services that proceed from their specific needs and thereby use the entire potential of this sector for growth. Small and medium-sized companies often need fast and flexible solution that are an advantages of Bigbank.”
Ingo Põder acquired higher education from the Estonian University of Life Sciences and the University of Tartu. He has managed the Department of International Companies at Nordea Bank, was a member of the management board of Bigbank where he was responsible for the area of risk, and also a member of the management board of Hüpoteeklaen AS, where most of the clients were corporates. Corporate Loan Departments in the Baltic States will still be managed by Aimar Roosalu in Estonia, Mareks Grodskis in Latvia and Deividas Žukas in Lithuania.
Bigbank AS (www.bigbank.ee) is an Estonian-owned credit institution which specialises in consumer loans and term deposits, which in addition to its operations in Estonia has subsidiaries in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania and Spain and which also offers its products as cross-border services in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands. At the end of Q1 2019 the group had 121,000 loan agreements in total, 30,000 of them in Estonia, 40,000 in Latvia, 28,000 in Lithuania, 10,000 in Finland, 10,000 in Sweden and 3,000 in Spain. Customer receivables divided geographically as follows: 28.6% Lithuania, 23.1% Latvia, 19.1% Estonia, 16.0% Finland, 11.2% Sweden and 2% Spain. Bigbank has 426 employees, incl. 234 in Estonia, 82 in Latvia, 76 in Lithuania, 17 in Finland, 10 in Spain and 7 in Sweden