August 29 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's largest lender, state-owned Nova Ljubljanska Banka (NLB), said it booked a consolidated net profit of 69.5 million euro ($77.7 million) in the first half of 2016, up 30% from a year earlier.
The good business result is mainly due to lower business costs and reduced impairments and provisions, NLB said in a financial report late on Friday.
Net interest income in the first half of 2016 stood at 156.7 million euro, representing a drop of 8% on the year. Impairments and provisions totalled 21 million euro through June, down 49% on the year.
The share of non-performing loans decreased by 1.4 percentage points to 17.9%, whereas the volume of non-performing loans dropped by 146.3 million euro and stood at 1.75 billion euro at the end of June 2016.
In the first half, NLB Group further strengthened its position outside of Slovenia: in western Serbia within less than two months three new branches were opened in cities of Cacak, Sabac and Uzice. NLB Banka Belgrade was, in addition, one of the top three banks in terms of the absolute production of new loans to clients in the market in first quarter of 2016. Parallel to this, a new branch was opened in the centre of Sarajevo, allowing NLB Group to further strengthen its appearance in one of Bosnia's two autonomous entities - the Muslim Croat Federation, after moving its headquarters from Tuzla to Sarajevo.
The bank's total assets stood at 11.76 billion euro at end June, down slightly from 11.8 billion euro last year.
NLB, which posted a consolidated net profit of 91.9 million euro in 2015, was one of two Slovenian banks - alongside NKBM, to show a minor capital shortfall under the adverse scenario of the stress test conducted by the European Central Bank in October.
In December 2013, the Slovenian government had to step in and recapitalize the country's three biggest lenders - NLB, NKBM and Abanka, narrowly avoiding an international bailout.
($=0.8941 euro)