November 2 (SeeNews) - Serbia's Erste Bank Novi Sad recorded a net profit of 1.68 billion dinars ($16.2 million/14.2 million euro) in the first nine months of 2018, down from 2.115 billion dinars in the like period of last year.
The decline was attributed to one-off positive effects on net profit in the first nine months of last year from the release of provisions and collections, Erste Bank Novi Sad said in an e-mailed statement.
The bank added its NPL ratio fell to 1.8% at the end of September 2018, from 4.02% a year earlier and 3.2% at the end of December 2017.
"Total loans increased by almost 22% compared to the end of last year, while total deposits increased by 15%. In addition, the level of non-performing loans is the lowest in the last ten years and amounts to only 1.8%, which is far below the average not only in Serbia but also in the European Union," the president of the executive board of the bank, Slavko Caric, said.
Net interest income rose by an annual 5.9% to 4.92 billion dinars in the first nine months, while net fee and commission income increased by 4.6% year-on-year to 1.15 billion dinars.
Loans to households increased to 60.45 billion dinars at end-September, up 19.1% compared to the end-2017 figure, while deposits of individuals grew 7.3% to 60.59 billion dinars.
The bank's corporate loan portfolio increased by 16.9% compared to the end of 2017 to 66.18 billion dinars at the end of September, while corporate deposits grew 20% to 45.32 billion dinars.
Capital adequacy ratio (CAR) stood at 18.44% at end-September.
Erste Bank Novi Sad is part of Vienna-basedErsteGroup, which serves over 16 million clients in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia.
(1 euro = 118.370 dinars)
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