Banks, Estonia, Financial Services, Latvia

The Latvian branch of Krediidipank will continue operations until June 14 but will stop accepting new clients and deposits as of March 31. The assets of all clients of the Latvian branch will be returned to them. The change will not affect Krediidipank's Estonian clients, the bank said.

According to the head of the Latvian branch, Arturs Toms, Krediidipank has around 1,200 clients in Latvia who can transfer their business to some other bank until the end of May.

The Latvian branch has 17 employees whose employment contracts will be terminated by the end of this year at the latest.

Krediidipank CEO Margus Rink said the reason for closing the Latvian branch is reorganization of the bank's activity. "AS Eesti Krediidipank got new owners in January this year whose aim is to create a strong bank focusing on the Estonian market, and beginning from this fall we'll be operating in partnership with Estonia's largest retail chain under the name Coop Pank. Owning a branch in Latvia is not in agreement with our new strategy and because of that the supervisory board of Krediidipank decided to close the branch," Rink explained.

Coop Eesti acquired Bank of Moscow's majority holding in AS Eesti Krediidipank in January. The group's aim is to build up a strong Estonian-equity bank that would take advantage of the synergy between retail trade and banking.