OREANDA-NEWS. December 5, 2011. In this year's 3rd quarter, the loan portfolio of BIGBANK, which is specialised on consumer loans, grew by approximately 6 per cent, while the company earned a profit of 2.1. million euros.

According to the public interim report for 3Q of the BIGBANK Group, the bank's loan portfolio grew by 9.7 million euros, i.e. 5.8%, and as of the end of September reached 176.8 million euros. The loan portfolio grew in all countries where the bank is active. The largest contribution to the growth of the loan portfolio was made by BIGBANK's Finnish and Spanish branches.

In the 3rd quarter, the volume of total assets grew by 11.6 million euros, reaching 221.8 million euros as of the end of the quarter. The volume of obligations reached 170.0 million euros, having grown during the quarter by 9.5 million euros. Term deposits continue to form the largest part of obligations.

Meanwhile BIGBANK's interest income in the reached 9.2 million euros, increasing by 1.9 million euros in comparison to the 3rd quarter of the previous year. The increase in interest income results from the growth of the loan portfolio.

Net profit of Group in the 3rd quarter amounted to 2.1 million euros, which in comparison to the same period of the previous year is 1.0 million euros more. In the 3rd quarter, the profit before impairment allowances totalled to 4.2 million euros.

In comparison to the two previous quarters of 2011, the payment behaviour of customers has improved in the 3rd quarter and both the number of customers making payments and the rate of receipts from the default portfolio have grown steadily. The volume of the Group's non-performing portfolio in the total loan portfolio has decreased.

The Chairman of the Management Board of BIGBANK AS, Targo Raus, said that the growth of the bank's loan portfolio is primarily resulting from the geographic expansion of the company to new markets. "The general instability of the European economic environment will certainly affect the consumer loan market, but as a result of BIGBANK's conservative credit policy in the recent years, the effects of the external environment to our activity are not as notable today and in the last quarter, the quality of our loan portfolio improved," Raus added.

BIGBANK AS is a specialised credit institution based on Estonian capital, which has branches in Finland, Latvia Lithuania and Spain. BIGBANK and provides its services on cross-border basis also in Austria and Germany. As of the end of September, BIGBANK had 538 employees in five countries. As of the end of the quarter, the Group had 30 branch offices, of which 10 were located in Estonia, 7 in Latvia, 10 in Lithuania, 1 in Finland and 2 in Spain.