Baltic, Banks, Financial Services

The group's revenue in Latvia grew by 6% to LVL 20.1 million, costs – reduced 1%, excluding its one-off costs in the first quarter of 2011, writes LETA.

The group's profit before provisions reached LVL 10.8 million in the first quarter of 2012, 8% less than in the first three months of 2011, whereas income from basic activities after taxes and additional provisions totaled LVL 5.4 million.

The total amount of deposits at SEB banka reached LVL 1.04 billion as of March 31 – 8% more than at the end of March 2011. The bank's loan portfolio totaled LVL 2.02 billion.

In the first three months of 2012, the bank issued LVL 83.7 million in new loans, 52% more than in the corresponding period last year.

The bank's capital and reserves amounted to LVL 295.9 million as of March 31, 2012, total assets – LVL 2.53 billion.

The group's capital adequacy ratio was 19.76%, liquidity ratio – 47.42%.

According to preliminary data, unaudited net profit earned over the first quarter of 2012 by SEB bankas is LTL 30.7 million (EUR 8.9 million) and by SEB bankas Group at LTL 41.5 million (EUR 12 million), the bank said in a statement.

Over the Q1 of the year 2011, unaudited net profit earned by SEB bankas totaled LTL 97.6 million (EUR 28.3 million) and by the bank's Group – LTL 174.1 million (EUR 50.4 million).

SEB bank Lithuania President Raimondas Kvedaras says that during the first Q1 of 2012 Lithuania's economy remained on the track of growth. Despite rather slow development rates the GDP continues to grow.

"The bank's Group revenues in the first quarter remained stable, while profit fell, compared year-on-year. However, the fall was only a statistical one, the reason of which was some of the customers' financial situation improved in the Q1 of 2011. As a result, the bank at the same time was able to reduce provisions for bad loands," SEB Lithuanian president said.

The Estonian units of the SEB financial concern ended the first quarter of this year with a profit of 23 million euros, which was a growth of 39% in a year, Äripäev/LETA reports.

The operating revenues were 35 million euros (30.7 mln in the first quarter of 2011) and operating costs 15.6 million euros (16.4 mln euros). The bank reduced loan loss allocations by 3.6 million euro.

"The three first months of 2012 continued to be characterised by the low loan demand and quite remarkable savings ability of private clients," said SEB Pank board chairman Riho Unt, adding that housing loan volumes have increased month after month and if that trend continues, private clients' loan portfolio will stabilise in the second half of this year after falling for 3.5 years.

Deposits of private clients grow fast and currently private individuals have 23% more deposits at the whole market than at the end of 2008. In year-on-year comparison, deposits of private individuals grew in SEB in the first quarter by 8.6%.

The activity of companies has been more modest than expected, the bank noted.