LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), February 21 (SeeNews) – Slovenian banking group NLB, the parent company of Nova Ljubljanska Banka [LJE:NLBR], said that its consolidated after-tax profit decreased by 5% year-on-year to 193.6 million euro ($209.0 million) in 2019.
NLB Group's net operating income rose by 4% last year, reaching 513.6 million euro, the group said in an unaudited annual financial report on Thursday.
Net interest income grew by 2% to 318.5 million euro, while net non-interest income increased by 8% to 195.1 million euro.
Costs rose 4% to 301.4 million euro, mostly due to higher employee, technology, consulting, and supervision costs.
The group's assets totalled 14.2 billion euro at the end of December, up from 12.7 billion euro a year earlier.
NLB Group's total capital ratio reached 16.3% at the end of December, which is 0.5 percentage points lower compared to the end-2018 figure and above the regulatory requirement of 14.75%.
“In 2019, NLB Group continued to follow the principle of prudent risk-taking with an emphasis on diversification, which guarantees the high quality of the loan portfolio. This is reflected in its stable credit rating structure and a very low share of new non-performing loans formation (0.6% of the total loan portfolio),” the group noted.
NLB's shares closed unchanged at 65.0 euro on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange on Thursday.
Elsewhere in Southeast Europe, NLB Group is active in Bosnia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.
($ = 0.92618 euro)
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