Banks, Financial Services, Latvia

The amount of deposits at the previous market leader, now state-run Parex banka, has decreased by 43% year-on-year.

The total amount of deposits in Latvian banks was LVL 9.57 billion at the end of January, or 2.8% less than at end-January 2008. This past January, the amount of deposits contracted LVL 192 million, which though is significantly less than in January 2008 when the amount of deposits dropped LVL 333 million, writes LETA.

Year-on-year, the volume of deposits at Swedbank and SEB banka at the end of January had returned almost to the level of January 2007. The amount of deposits at Swedbank fell by 10.5% in January to LVL 1.52 billion overall. Deposits at SEB banka decreased by 9.2% to LVL 1.18 billion.

At the same time, deposit volumes at small banks increased at least 40-percentage-wise, the biggest increase of 70.8% was reported by PrivatBank, which belongs to Ukrainian shareholders.

Nordea registered the biggest increase in the volume of deposits, LVL 177.9 million, whereas deposits at Latvijas tirdzniecibas banka decreased the most, LVL 358 million.

In the wake of the withdrawals from Parex banka and other major banks, Aizkraukles banka became the largest bank in Latvia last month in terms of deposits. This was mostly achieved thanks to the bank's strategy to primarily serve corporate customers, and the bank will continue with this strategy, said Aizkraukles banka spokesman Janis Bunte.

Swedbank still remains the leading bank in terms of deposits placed by private individuals. Although the total amount of these deposits in the bank has decreased LVL 125.2 million or 13%, Swedbank still has a comfortable lead over all other banks in Latvia.