OREANDA-NEWS. February 05, 2009. The bank’s assets before provisions for possible losses grew by more than 27% comparing to January 1, 2008 and as of January 1, 2009 exceeded 145.9 bn rubles, reported the press-centre of Bank Vozrozhdenie.

Average annual ROE equaled to 21.3% vs.19.8% a year ago. Bank Vozrozhdenie equity calculated according to the Bank of Russia methodology as of January 1, 2009 amounted to 18.9 bn rubles (up by 4.4 bn rubles, 30.3% Y-o-Y).

Dmitry Orlov, the President of Bank Vozrozhdenie says: ”Conservative business approach and partner relations with clients helped us to keep their confidence and maintain acceptable asset quality even in hard times. We have proved that we can ensure stable functioning of the Bank in the environment of ongoing volatility of financial markets and keep on earning profit for our shareholders. Bank’s 2008 net profit according to RAS totaled 2.9 bn rubles exceeding the planned level by 450 mn rubles”.

Notwithstanding the influence of the world financial crisis that affected Bank Vozrozhdenie business as well as the performance of the whole banking system the bank managed to hit all targets set for 2008 at the end of 2007.

Despite the significant deposits outflow in September-November of 2008 the total amount of raised funds including those from banks and issued debt securities increased by 26.5% during the last 12 months and exceeded 123. bn rubles as of January 1, 2009. The Bank is planning to intensify its efforts to strengthen the funding base primarily on the back of effective cooperation with existing clients.

Volume of transactions on client accounts grew by 30% notwithstanding uncertain economic conditions. Servicing clients’ day-to-day operations gave the bank more than third of its operating income. In general non-interest income for 2008 rose by almost 50% to 5.2 bn rubles.

Bank Vozrozhdenie loan portfolio (both corporate and retail clients) amounted to 100 bn rubles as of January 1, 2009, an increase of 22.6 % comparing to the same period of the previous year. Due to macroeconomic situation ongoing deterioration and cautious forecasts for 2009 economic performance the Bank decided to increase provisions for loans impairment. During the year additional 2.5 bn rubles were charged to provisions.

SMEs continue to be the key client segment of Bank Vozrozhdenie. The commercial loan portfolio grew by 24.4% to 80.5 bn rubles during the last 12 months. Over the year the retail loan portfolio of Bank Vozrozhdenie rose by 2.5 bn to 19.2 bn rubles as of January 1, 2009. Consumer lending including card loans became the most popular bank’s retail product in 2008.

Bank Vozrozhdenie has been a Principal member of international payment systems Visa and MasterCard since 1998. The Bank issued its 1,250-thousandth plastic card in October 2008. All bank cards are smart ones. Using its extensive card infrastructure the bank provided over 7,400 corporate clients with payroll services. As of January 1, 2009 Bank Vozrozhdenie serviced POS-terminals of more than 1.900 companies ensuring settlements for goods and services via bank cards.