OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2009. In the 2nd quarter of 2009 DnB NORD Banka continued its development, paying close attention to the challenging macro economic situation facing Latvia, and focusing on increasing operational income and promoting overall efficiency of the bank, as well as working closely with customers to ensure the quality of the current loan portfolio, reported the press-centre of DnB NORD Banka.  

In the first half of 2009 the unaudited profit before provisions and taxes reached LVL 17.3 million. Teika Lapsa, Head of PR department of DnB NORD Banka, explains, "Though the banking sector is making provisions now thus suffering from losses, operational income reflects the efficiency of the bank, therefore I am pleased that the operational income of DnB NORD Banka is 15% higher than in the respective period of 2008".

The deposit portfolio of DnB NORD Banka grew by 3.5% in comparison with the beginning of the year, reaching LVL 444 million.

Given the challenging economic situation of Latvia, the bank continued to maintain a strict risk policy to ensure long-term stability. The net amount of provisions in the end of June was LVL 77.2 million. The loss for the first six months of the year amounted to LVL 51 million after provisions.

End of April 2009 DnB NORD Banka received a loan by DnB NORD A/S in the amount of EUR 20 million in order to strengthen its capital base as well as promote stabile development of the bank. In the end of June DnB NORD Banka started its share emission thus planning to increase its share capital by 35.2 million LVL. Therefore, the capital base of the bank is increasing by almost LVL 50 million during the respective period.

The number of customers – both private persons and legal entities - continued to increase during the first half year of 2009; the number of legal entities grew by more than 400 companies and the number of private persons by more than 4200 customers.