"For Siauliu Bankas, the current year was exceptional and successful though full of changes. The euro adoption, declining prices of the payment services, rearrangements of the bank's organisational structure and its activities related to integration of the leasing and investment companies as well as development of services – it's quite a challenge we are dealing with successfully. The Bank's results are indicating that focus on domestic market, business continuity, flexibility and speed of decision-making consistently strengthen the Bank as well as its ambition to become a reliable financial partner to the country's business and population," Vytautas Sinius, CEO of Siauliu Bankas, summarised the interim result.
This year lending became more active – both the business entities and households borrowed more. The Group's loan and finance lease portfolio grew by 7% up to EUR 891 million over the third quarter, while from the beginning of the year it increased by 15%. Siauliu Bankas originated new loans to customers amounting to more than EUR 350 million over the three quarters of the year.
Deposits remain the most popular means of saving for the country's population. The Group's deposit portfolio exceeded EUR 1.4 billion at the end of September, i.e. increased by 1% from the beginning of the year. This increase is an outcome of the acquisition of the bank Finasta by Siauliu Bankas Group. Excluding the influence of this single factor, the deposit portfolio decreased slightly since the beginning of the year as the result of the euro adoption – in order to convert the currency safely and without standing in queues, part of the population decided to place deposits in litas in the end of 2014, which later were withdrawn in euros. Comparing to the respective period of last year, the Group's deposit portfolio grew even after elimination of the impact arising from the acquisition of the bank Finasta.
The net interest income was boosted by increasing lending. Over the first nine months of 2015, Siauliu Bankas Group earned 13% more from this type of income as compared to the same period of previous year.
A positive change in the net service and commission fees have been observed over the year: EUR 5.7 million were earned and the result of the respective period of last year was exceeded by 34%. This was largely impacted by the proficiency in financing of projects under the multi-apartment house modernization programme gained by Siauliu Bankas over a few recent years.
Cost to income ratio comprised 52.9%, return on equity reached 19.2% and return on assets amounted 1.4% at the end of September.
Increase in the authorised capital of Siauliu Bankas was registered on 14 September of the current year and went in line with implementation of other capital strengthening measures. These actions have ensured the bank's compliance with the capital adequacy ratios with a comfortable cushion. After the implementation of the above mentioned measures, the capital adequacy ratio exceeded 14%.
The transaction of acquisition of the bank Finasta AB and brokerage company Finasta was closed in July. The process of companies' integration has been already launched by Siauliu Bankas and is planned to be accomplished within the current year. Supplementing the range of its services with securities trading and brokerage services, Siauliu Bankas will be able to offer more complex investment solutions and better saving conditions to its customers. Also, the bank is intensively working on other projects that will be finished within this year: SEPA, which will allow the bank's clients to make payments throughout the euro area just as easily and safely as national payments starting from 2016 and an e-invoice service, which is supposed to replace currently used direct debit and allow handling regular invoices according to the customers' needs, are in the process of implementation.
