Baltic, Banks, Deposits, Financial Services, Loan

Profit before provisions in Latvia was EUR 52.5 million, up 13% from 2014. Last year the bank created provisions in the amount of EUR 12.6 million which was by 36% less than in 2014.

In 2015 SEB Banka issued loans totaling EUR 549 million, of which EUR 87 million were personal loans and EUR 462 were corporate loans. Loans to small and medium-sized enterprises added up to EUR 185 million, growing 11% from 2014.

The head of SEB Banka, Ieva Tetere, said that last year had been full of challenges, including negative interest rates and economic decline in Russia. At the same time, she welcomed growth of lending in 2015, including as regards housing loans. Last year SEB Banka issued 1,400 housing loans for a total of EUR 50 million.

SEB group’s revenue in Latvia in 2015 was EUR 101.2 million, up 2% year-on-year, and costs dropped 9% to EUR 48.7 million.

Deposits held by SEB Banka at the end of 2015 totaled EUR 2.1 billion, up 1% compared to the end of 2014.

The bank’s total loan portfolio stood at EUR 2.5 billion at the end of 2015 or by 4% less than in late 2014.

The bank’s capital and reserves amounted to EUR 459.9 million on December 31, 2015, and its assets were worth EUR 3.5 billion.

The capital adequacy ratio was 23.72% and the liquidity ratio was 37.2% at the end of 2015.

At the end of September 2015, SEB Banka was the fourth biggest bank in Latvia by assets, according to the information from the Latvian Association of Commercial Banks.

SEB Bankas, Lithuania's largest bank by assets, said on Thursday that its full-year net profit fell to 62.1 million euros in 2015, down 4.9% from 65.3 million euros in 2014.

The net profit of the SEB Bankas Group, including the bank's subsidiaries, last year dropped to 58.8 million euros, down 18.8% from 72.4 million euros the previous year.

The group's revenue declined by 15% to 151.7 million euros, mostly due to euro adoption and a negative interest rate environment, the bank said.  

"All throughout the year, the negative interest rate environment and the changeover to the euro had an adverse effect on the bank's income (there was a decrease in income from interest, cross-border payments, currency exchange transactions), but the bank's operational efficiency was growing," SEB Bankas President Raimondas Kvedaras said in the press release.

The SEB Bankas Group's assets increased by 2% over the year to 6.9 billion euros. Its loan and leasing portfolio expanded by 4% to 4.9 billion euros.

According to Kvedaras, the amount to loans issued both to private individuals and to businesses rose last year thanks to increased housing lending and a recovery in business investments. The bank provided new loans worth 1.6 billion euros in total during the year.

SEB Bankas' deposit portfolio grew by 7% over the year to 4.8 billion euros.

Estonian units of the Swedish banking group SEB earned a profit of 75 million euros last year, which corresponds to the year-earlier result.

Household deposits increased by 6.3% and corporate deposits by 4.9% during the year. New sales of housing loans grew by 25.2% or 51.4 million euros, SEB said in a press release.

"Despite a contradictory year, the activity and business volumes of all our customer segments have grown and this is reflected in the strong results of SEB bank," CEO of SEB Estonia Allan Parik said.

Fast digitalization was another keyword for the past year, Parik said. "Our clients' consumption habits have changed, for instance the popularity of card payments increased by 8.4% over the year and every fifth online transfer was made via the mobile banking application," he said.

The group's operating income in Estonia amounted to 135.1 million euros and operating expenses totaled 61.1 million euros. Loan loss provisions decreased by 3.7 million euros.