Banks, Financial Services, Latvia, Wages

Meanwhile, salaries for bank employees decreased year-on-year. In the first six months of 2017, the Latvian banks spent a total of EUR 102.37 million on employees' salaries, which was 1% or EUR 1.015 million less than a year ago.

Salaries paid to top managers made 1.9% of the bank's total expenditures in the first half of 2017, which was a 0.7 percentage points increase against the first half of last year. The share of employees' wages, meanwhile, rose by 1.7 percentage points to 18.9%.

The Latvian banks' administrative costs in the six months of this year rose by 4.7% year-on-year or EUR 11.027 million to EUR 246.899 million, while their share in the banks' total expenditure was expanded to 45.7% from 39.3% a year ago.

The banks’ provisions for unsafe loans and liabilities shrank 2.3 times or by EUR 90.266 million to EUR 70.515 million, and their share in the bans’ total expenditure was down to 13% from 26.8% a year ago.

The aggregate expenditures of the Latvian banks in the first half of 2017 came to EUR 540.51 million, down 9.8% or EUR 58.949 million from the same period last year.

There are 23 banks in Latvia, including seven branches of foreign banks.