February 28 (SeeNews) - Serbia's Erste Bank Novi Sad recorded a net profit of 2.68 billion dinars ($25.2 million/22.8 million euro) last year, down 8.2% on 2018, the bank said on Friday.
Net interest income grew 9.4% to 7.321 billion dinars, while net fee and commission income increased 11.2% to 1.767 billion dinars, Erste Bank Novi Sad said in an e-mailed statement.
The non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of the bank was 1.4% at the end of 2019, Erste Bank Novi Sad said.
"Support for businesses during 2019 was focused on their investment activities, and excellent results were recorded in real estate lending. In addition, by successfully issuing long-term dinar bonds, we have contributed to the development of the domestic capital and secondary debt markets," the president of the executive board of the bank, Slavko Caric, said in the statement.
In February 2019, the bank raised 3.5 billion dinars from the sale of two-year bonds, fully meeting its target.
The total assets of Erste Bank Novi Sad rose to 231.45 billion dinars as at end-December 2019, from 202.93 billion dinars a year earlier.
Erste Bank Novi Sad is part of Vienna-based Erste Group, which serves over 16 million clients in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, and Serbia.
(1 euro = 117.517 dinars)
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