August 16 (SeeNews) - Romanian state-owned savings bank CEC said on Tuesday it booked a net profit of 110.8 million lei ($22.9 million/22.6 million euro) in the first half of 2022, compared to 208.4 million lei in the same period of the previous year.
During the first six months of 2022, CEC Bank signed over 27,000 new credit contracts worth a total 5.5 billion lei, it said in a press release.
Net interest income rose 20.5% on the year to 1.2 billion lei at end- June, the bank said.
The bank's assets rose by an annual 20% in January-June, exceeding 53 billion lei.
CEC Bank's loans granted to customers increased by an annual 20% in 2021 to 29.3 billion lei in the first half, while deposits increased by an annual 28.3% to 47.5 billion lei.
The loan portfolio remained healthy and the non-performing loan ratio stood at 4.88% at the end of June, lower than 5.38% at the end of June 2021.
"CEC Bank has demonstrated that it can quickly adapt to new challenges in the context of inflationary pressures, combined with a decrease in market liquidity," CEC Bank president Bogdan Neacsu said.
Founded in 1864 as Casa de Economii si Consemnatiuni (Deposits and Consignments House), it was reorganised in 1996 as a joint stock company with the finance ministry as its sole shareholder and then re-branded in 2008 as CEC Bank.
In March, Fitch Ratings assigned CEC a first-time Long-Term Issuer Default Rating (IDR) of 'BB' with stable outlook.
In December 2021, CEC Bank received a 1.4 billion lei subordinated loan from the finance ministry, as part of the obligations assumed under a business plan that was the basis for a 200 million euro ($226 million) increase of the share capital of CEC Bank, approved by the European Commission at the end of 2019.
(1 euro=4.8831 lei)
CEC Bank SA is among the biggest banks in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here