OREANDA-NEWS  On 14 October was announced, that the Baltic Investment Group Bank (BIG) opened its 22nd branch in Estonia and 46th branch in the Baltic States this Thursday, 9 October 2008, in Kuressaare, the capital of the island of Saaremaa.

Located in the Auri shopping centre, the biggest in Saaremaa on the Kuressaare ring road, the branch provides all of the loan and deposit services that BIG offers. The branch represents BIG’s first on the islands of Western Estonia, where previously the bank’s services were only available by post or through electronic channels.

The most recent branch to be opened prior to the one on Saaremaa was the new one in Tallinn’s Rocca al Mare shopping centre. Veiko Sepp, BIG’s Branch Network Manager, the company’s goal is to develop one of the best customer service networks in the Baltic States. “We’ve already done a lot of what we needed to do to achieve that in Estonia, and at the moment we’re focusing our attention on expanding our network of branches in Latvia and especially Lithuania,” he explained.

With its new branches in Rocca al Mare and Kuressaare BIG now has a total of 43 branches in the Baltic States: 22 in Estonia, 15 in Latvia and six in Lithuania. In Estonia and Latvia BIG’s services are available not only from branches of the bank, but also from post offices.

The Baltic Investment Group Bank is one of the largest banks in the Baltic States specialising in lending to private clients and is the leader in the small loans sector of the Estonian market. At the end of June 2008 BIG employed 492 people. The company’s debt securities are listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.