OREANDA-NEWS. October 05, 2010. Joining the management board of SEB Pank and taking up the post of manager of the Retail Banking and Technology area will be Eerika Vaikmae-Koit, who is currently serving as the bank’s Support Units Manager, reported the press-centre of SEB.

The Retail Banking and Technology area is the biggest business unit within SEB, employing more than half of the bank’s staff and accounting for almost half of the bank’s volume of business. It serves around 500,000 active private clients and 34,000 small and medium-sized companies and is responsible for the development of the bank’s product portfolio as a whole.

“We’re about to introduce some big changes in retail banking, and I’m happy that the management of this process will be in Eerika’s very safe pair of hands,” said Riho Unt, Chairman of the Management Board of SEB, who has served as the manager of the Retail Banking and Technology area for the last three years. “The new Internet Bank, the introduction of the private client administrator system and the smooth changeover to the euro in our branches and in our e-services are just some of the things retail banking will be dealing with in the near future. Right now, advice and financing is just what small and medium-sized companies need in order to keep up with new growth. Eerika has been with SEB for many years, so we’re sure that our clients will remain the most satisfied on the Estonian banking market.”

Vaikmae-Koit: 40% more new home loans in September
“The return to economic growth has gotten companies and ordinary clients thinking again about big decisions, and SEB is happy to help them in terms of both advice and financing,” says Vaikmae-Koit. “Service companies are proving to be the most active on the business side, since they are updating their payment solutions because of the transition to the euro – we’ve been receiving twice as many orders for payment terminals as normal. And though companies aren’t back to where they were in terms of borrowing just yet, we’re ready for it when they are.”

Describing the current situation with home loans, Vaikmae-Koit said: “The volume of new loans in September was almost 40% higher than at the same time last year, and twice as high as in January this year. But despite the increased sense of security, private clients are still reducing their risks in regard to their loans wherever they can – 40% of new loans are being insured against unemployment at the moment, compared to 25% in September last year. Changes are happening elsewhere, too: in October we will be unveiling a new Internet Bank, one which will operate at a much higher level than any that’s been seen and used in Estonia to date. We’ll definitely be making life hard for our competitors, since the innovations we’re rolling out will shake things up on the market.”

Eerika Vaikmae-Koit has served in a variety of positions in both business and support functions in SEB since 1996. Between 2001 and 2005 she was the Deputy Manager of the Retail Banking Division, and from 2005 to 2008 she led a number of cross-border projects within the SEB Group. In 2008 she took up the post of Support Units Manager, overseeing personnel, legal, marketing and communication functions.