In 2017, SEB bank issued 965 million euros in financing

Last year, SEB group in Latvia issued 965 million euros in financing, which is 28% more than in 2016. 780 million euros was provided to companies and other legal entities, while 186 million, to private individuals: 31% and 20% more than last year, respectively. In total, SEB group in Latvia earned 40.9 million euros in profits over 2017, expanding its credit portfolio by 6%.
 

Head of SEB bank Ieva Tetere reported on the 2017 financial results:

"In 2017, we made a big push: despite the large amount of work that was necessary to replace the bank’s IT and customer service systems at the beginning of the year, we have managed to actively support our clients in achieving their business and private goals. Large-scale investment projects boosted lending to larger companies: their readiness to expand is highlighted by the 106.5 million loan issued for the construction of the Akropole shopping and entertainment centre, as well as the 35.4 million long-term loan agreement to build an IKEA store in Latvia. In total, over the last year, companies and other legal entities received 780 million euros in loans from SEB, which is almost a third more than a year prior to that.

At the same time, the economic mood has improved among private individuals as they became more interested in getting loans for residential property: compared to 2016, the number of mortgage loans granted by our bank has grown by 30% in amount and by 11% in number. Overall in 2017, we issued 186 million euros to private individuals, which is one fifth more than in 2016.

Last year, we paid particular attention to solutions that help dealing with private or company finances in a more convenient and modern way. Of all the initiatives that we introduced in 2017, we are particularly proud of the Smart-ID client payment authentication solution, which works since March, and already covers 147 thousand of our clients. This solution not only makes life easier for our clients; it also supports the EU payment directive, which particularly regulates the provision of safe payment authentication solutions to clients. To support younger people, in September we introduced our fully-digitised state-guaranteed study loan application and signing procedure that has been used by more than 1300 university students. We also looked for ways to support young entrepreneurs, and created the eAkademija.lv business knowledge space, which already has more than 1000 registered users, and we have lately made this platform even more accessible.

Talking about 2018, it is clear that legal requirements and new EU directives will dictate the bank’s agenda even more, and we will have to be even more successful in finding a balance between developing convenient services for our clients and complying with requirements set for bank operations. We have already started providing the “Open Banking” platform in all three Baltic States, opening broader opportunities for cooperation between the bank and other companies, and making it possible for our clients to make electronic payments for products and services more quickly, conveniently and easily." 

SEB group 2017 financial indicators in Latvia:

• the revenue of SEB group in Latvia was 98.48 million euros, which is 1% more than in 2016*;
• compared to 2016, the costs fell by 2%, or 49.7 million euros;
• the profits before savings reached 48.8 million euros, which is 4% more than in 2016*;
• within the period between January and end of December, 1.19 million euros were kept as savings, which is 82% less than in 2016;
• the operating profits after tax and savings reached 40.98 million euros in 2017, which is 20% than in 2016;
• the total amount of deposits in the SEB bank was 2.37 billion euros as of 31 December 2017, which is 6% more than at the end of 2016;
• the total credit portfolio at the end of 2017 reached 2.69 billion euros, i.e. 6% more than by the end of 2016;
• the number of active clients who have chosen SEB to be their financial partner has reached 416,304 private individuals and 30,819 legal entities;
• the equity was 403.9 million euros as of 31 December 2017;
• the amount of assets at the end of 2017 amounted to 3.688 billion euros;
• the capital sufficiency of SEB group in Latvia was 20.3% by the end of December 2017.

* — The percentage comparisons to 2016 indicated in the results do not account for the one-time sale of VISA Europe Limited for 18 million euros in 2016.