OREANDA-NEWS. December 13, 2010. "The Banker", a prestigious world banking and finance magazine published by the British newspaper "Financial Times" since 1926, awarded Bank SNORAS with the exclusive title - recognized it as the best bank in Lithuania in 2010, reported the press-centre of SNORAS. 

This year "The Banker" magazine chose the best banks in 149 countries, and this list included such banks as HSBC, "Barclays", "Deutsche Bank", etc. The award to Bank SNORAS was the result of the consistent expansion of the activity and network as well as the growth of all main indicators.

"This year we made a lot of courageous decisions, we were operating more promptly and actively than other participants of the market, therefore it is no wonder that the successful development of the bank and the improvement of activity results was noticed and appreciated by the professionals in the sphere of world finance.

To us, it is a great recognition and a stimulus for improving the service quality further and for developing the bank activity in Lithuania and other Baltic states. Next year, seeking to strengthen our positions in the active competitive struggle, we will devote most attention to business crediting development. We intend to use new opportunities, which are provided by the resurgent business and financial markets", states Raimondas Baranauskas, the President of AB Bank SNORAS.

"The Banker" assessed the banks by taking into consideration their abilities to guarantee positive return to the shareholders and the possibilities to gain a strategic advantage. During the three quarters of this year, AB Bank SNORAS has earned LTL 67.46 million of activity profit before taxes and provisions. The net profit of the bank, in comparison to January-September 2009, grew by 44 per cent up to LTL 5.9 million, while the price of AB Bank SNORAS registered ordinary shares at NASDAQ OMX Vilnius Stock Exchange skyrocketed by 77 per cent since the beginning of this year and presently stands at 1.77 Litas (0.514 Euro). At the same time the bank's capitalization on the market this year grew by 114.1 per cent and reached LTL 859.03 million.

In addition, in 2010 AB Bank SNORAS, taking into consideration the market situation, introduced new services - the inflation linked deposit certificates, a new saving investment method - the Balanced Investment Basket, "Western Union" international money transfers, while offering attractive crediting conditions and actively carrying out its activity, it did not diminish the customer service network. This enabled to improve the bank's indicators as well as the market share.

Within three quarters this year, AB Bank SNORAS assets increased by 13 per cent up to LTL 7.162 billion, the loan portfolio grew by 20 per cent up to LTL 3.933 billion, while during the comparative period the loan portfolio of the entire Lithuanian banking system diminished by 3.9 per cent and the assets - by 3.1 per cent.

Accordingly the sum of the attracted deposits increased by 20 per cent - up to more than LTL 6 billion, while the number of the bank's clients grew by 47 thousand, up to 1 million 136 thousand, which comprises more than one-third of the Lithuanian population. This year more than 2 thousand new corporate clients chose the bank as their business partner. Due to the active activity in the reporting period, AB Bank SNORAS increased its market share by almost 2 per cent, having won it over from the Northern European capital banks operating in Lithuania.

"The greatest challenge, while seeking to execute the main business mission of the bank - crediting of residents and companies - was the decreased demand for financing. The latter period required a lot of efforts while searching for prospective projects for crediting and rational assessment of their credit risks. During this stage, the most importantly for Bank SNORAS was to listen carefully to the customers' problems and to solve them promptly", remarks R. Baranauskas.

"The Banker", which is read in more than 150 countries worldwide, collects the data from over 4 thousand banks worldwide every year, analyzes their activity results and presents a list of the highest rated banks of the world. The title of the best bank is awarded to one bank in each country. SNORAS was recognised by the expert commission of "The banker" magazine as the best bank in Lithuania in 2006, too.

This year, Bank SNORAS receives international recognition for the second time - the readers of "World Finance", one of the most influential international magazines published in Great Britain, chose Bank SNORAS financial group as the best financial group of 2010 in the Baltic States.