OREANDA-NEWS. March 15, 2010. In 2009 OTP Group successfully managed all the challenges induced first by the US subprime crisis and later by the global fiscal and lending turmoil. It also met the major preliminary targets of the management. The Bank’s strong performance helped a lot to preserve the stability of the Hungarian banking sector.

Despite the sharp increase in risk costs as a result of worsening operating conditions, the Company realized HUF 151.5 billion adjusted after tax profit, which exceeded market consensus by about HUF 6 billion.

Due to the more conservative lending policy and the moderate loan demand the volume of gross consolidated loans decreased by 2% y-o-y, however in 4Q practically stagnated. Closing amount of the portfolio was HUF 6,844 billion. Within the gross loan portfolio the single most important part was the retail one (HUF 4,292 billion, 63%), the corporate book (HUF 2,162 billion) represented a smaller portion (31%). Car financing amounted to HUF 387 billion (6%). Out of retail loans mortgages represented HUF 2,703 billion, while consumer loans stood at HUF 1,149 billion.

In the last 12M HUF-based loan portfolio increase was experienced only in Croatia (+3%) Bulgaria (+1%) and in case of OTP Core (+1%), elsewhere the portfolio decreased. The most significant portfolio contraction was experienced in Montenegro (-29%), Slovakia (-13%) and Ukraine (-12%).

Consolidated deposits grew by 8% on a yearly base; on a quarterly base it increased by 2%. The FX-adjusted base would show a similar 2% increase q-o-q.

In the past 12 months the most significant deposit growth was captured in Russia (+37%), Romania (+33%) Bulgaria (+11%) and in Croatia (+7%) and the deposit growth at OTP Core was outstanding as well (+8%). The strongest deposit withdrawal hit CKB (-20%). In 4Q 2009 the situation improved a lot: there was no decrease but at worst stagnation. In 4Q apart from Croatia, Slovakia and Serbia all other subsidiaries managed to increase their deposit book. The most successful ones were the Russian, Ukrainian and Romanian subsidiaries (+25%, +11% and +6% respectively).

As a result of the modest lending activity, the consolidated loan-to-deposit ratio (121%) improved both on a quarterly and yearly base (-13% and -3% respectively). The net loan/(deposit+retail bond) liquidity ratio was 108%.

The consolidated IFRS CAR improved by 0.6%-points q-o-q, thus reached 17.5, the Tier1 ratio (13.8%) grew by 0.7%-points. Both levels are significantly higher than that of for OTP’s main competitors.