AB DNB Bankas, part of Norway's largest financial services group, earned a pre-tax profit of LTL 42.3 million in the first nine months of 2014, up from LTL 36.4 million in the same period a year ago due to the further growth of business volumes and higher operating efficiency.
The bank’s profit after taxes in the first nine months of the year was LTL 35.6 million compared to LTL 36.4 million net profits in the same period in 2013. The results are unaudited and calculated in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards.
“The underlying growth trend remained positive ensured by growth of our lending and deposit portfolio, balanced risk management and higher operating efficiency. In line with growth of business volume we earned more spending less thanks to ongoing focus on streamlining of our operations. Another positive factor was active development of self-service infrastructure for daily banking that helped us to scale down cash operations in branches by more than a third compared to the same period a year ago. That opened the door for us to spend more time on consulting customers on saving, lending and other more complex financial products and services. It also helped us to offset some of the higher expenses related to preparations for the Euro introduction in Lithuania. The results we achieved come as a clear signal - our strategy to pursue customer-centric business model pays off especially in the environment of low market rates and lower than expected economy growth,” said Bjornar Lund, the chairman of the management board and the CEO of AB DNB Bankas, commenting on the results for the first nine months of the year.
In the first nine months of 2014 AB DNB Bankas’ loan portfolio to individual and corporate customers rose 4.9 percent year-on-year to LTL 9.74 billion on the back of active work with legal entities and growth of the mortgage and consumer lending portfolio. The bank’s loan portfolio to individuals rose 4.9 percent year-on-year to LTL 4.23 billion as the loan portfolio to legal entities was up 2.9 percent year-on-year to LTL 5.5 billion.
Within the same period AB DNB Bankas’ deposit portfolio increased by 5.0 percent to LTL 6.62 billion. This resulted from the continued growth in the number of individual and corporate customers that chose DNB as their home bank. Growing number of active customers also contributed positively to the income growth from the bank’s core business.
In the first nine months of the year AB DNB Bankas net interest, service fee and commission income rose 3.4 percent year-on-year to LTL 233.1 million. At the same time the bank's operating and other expenses eased 4.5 percent year-on-year to LTL 199.4 million.
The bank’s loan losses made LTL 15.2 million in the first nine months of 2014 compared to LTL 9.9 million in the same period a year ago due to the lower write backs compared to the same period in 2013.
The assets of AB DNB Bankas rose 4.9 percent, or by LTL 584.1 million, year-on-year to LTL 12.56 billion as at the end of September.
Due to proper risk management the bank met all prudential requirements of the Bank of Lithuania.
The Norwegian DNB financial group's operating results for the first nine months of 2014 are available at www.dnb.no.
Information about AB DNB Bankas’ consolidated preliminary result for full year 2014 will be released on 5 February 2015.
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