OREANDA-NEWS. August 12, 2009. Mortgage bank has grown its assets volume by 5.4% in the first six months of this year, the assets thus have reached 993 million lats, incl. the volume of issued loans of 687 million lats, reported the press-centre of Mortgage Bank.

To enable financial availability to Latvian entrepreneurs, Mortgage bank has expanded the implementation of special purpose lending programmes this year, as mandated by the Government. The volume of loans granted under the Programme for Improvement of Competitiveness of Businesses during the first six months of this year has increased by 16.6 million lats, the total amount of loans granted under this programme is 64.4 mln. lats. 

During the first half of the year, Mortgage bank repaid a syndicated loan of 22 million euro and has accrued funds for repayment of a syndicated loan scheduled for the second half of the year. For this purpose, Mortgage bank has increased the amount of investments in Latvian Government securities to 103.6 million lats.

Due to the global deterioration of the economic situation, with the risk of granted loans rising, Mortgage bank has increased the provisions for doubtful assets by 20.5 million lats during the first six months of this year. As a result of building the provisions, the losses of Mortgage bank for the reporting period are 8.86 mln. lats. The Bank's unaudited gross profit for six months before taxes and provisions for doubtful loans reached 10.88 mln. lats, which is 2.3 times more if compared to the respective period of 2008. The retained earnings of the bank for previous years is 12.32 mln. lats.

In January of 2009, the paid-up share capital of the bank was increased by 29.5 million lats. The capital adequacy ratio on June 30, 2009 was 12%, which considerably exceeds the statutory minimum of the Law on Credit Institutions (8%). In the second half of the year, the Mortgage bank's capital is to be increased yet by 43 million lats, in accordance with the amendments to the national budget of 2009, accepted by the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia.

The international credit rating agency Moody's, after the in-depth analysis conducted in June, has retained the investment level credit rating for Mortgage bank, which is equal to that of the Latvian Government (Baa3, P-3).