Banks, Financial Services, Latvia, Loan

The list of top five lenders changed in the third quarter of this year. While Swedbank remained the largest lender, SEB Banka overtook Nordea Bank as the second biggest lender as Nordea stopped providing financial services in October and turned over its assets to Luminor Bank (the new entity created by merging the Baltic businesses of Nordea and DNB). Luminor kept the fourth position and Citadele Bank climbed to fifth place, beating Rietumu Banka.

The loan portfolio of Swedbank grew by 0.9% over the nine months of 2017 to EUR 3.317 billion.

SEB Banka increased its loan portfolio by 3% to EUR 2.605 billion, and the Latvian branch of Nordea Bank saw its loan portfolio decline by 25.1% to EUR 2 billion. Luminor Bank’s loan portfolio was down 2.9% to EUR 1.456 billion and Citadele Bank’s loan portfolio expanded by 11.5% to EUR 1.224 billion.

During the nine-month period, loan portfolios grew not only for Swedbank, SEB Banka and Citadele, but also for ABLV Bank (by 0.7%), the Latvian branch of Danske Bank (by 17.7%), the Latvian branch of OP Corporate Bank (by 65%), BlueOrange Bank (by 19.8%), Regionala Investiciju Banka (by 1.8%), the Latvian branch of BigBank (by 16.9%), Baltic International Bank (by 0.9%) and Latvijas Pasta Banka (by 16.1%).

Meanwhile, loan portfolios decreased for nine banks, including the Latvian branch of Nordea Bank and Luminor Bank, as well as Rietumu Banka (by 7%), Norvik Banka (by 3.8%), Meridian Trade Bank (5.4%), PrivatBank (by 19.9%), Rigensis Bank (3.6 times), Signet Bank (by 27.5%) and Expobank (4.6 times).

At the end of September, the banks had issued EUR 8.915 billion in corporate loans, according to the banking association’s data. SEB Banka had granted corporate loans worth EUR 1.657 billion, followed by Swedbank with EUR 1.57 billion, the Latvian branch of Nordea with EUR 1.14 billion and Rietumu Banka with EUR 1.064 billion.

The Latvian banks’ aggregate portfolio of personal loans was worth EUR 5.558 billion at the end of September. Swedbank had lent EUR 1.705 billion, Luminor Bank EUR 931.037 million, SEB Banka EUR 926.641 million and the Latvian branch of Nordea EUR 854.734 million.