OREANDA-NEWS. As of 30 June 2013, loans issued to small businesses totalled RUB 44.5bn billion (under IFRS), demonstrating a 14.3% increase since 31 December 2012.

Small business segment continues to be one of the Group's fastest-growing segments. As of 30 June 2013, the small business loan portfolio accounts for 6.3% of the total loan portfolio of the Group including corporate, retail, small and investment business.

Fedor Sytin, Head of small business segment: “Developing the small business segment continues to be a priority for Nomos-Bank. The segment continues to grow above the average market rate. Quite a large number of services and new loan products are being developed: very soon, we will come up with new interesting solutions”.

In the first half of 2013 the segment's operating income before provisions for impairment was RUB 2.6bn, or 11.6% of the aggregate of the Group's four key business segments.

The segment's net income for the first half of 2013 amounted to RUB 850mn, demonstrating a 1.4% year on year increase. As of 30 June 2013, Nomos Group serviced 85,000 small business clients.

NOMOS is currently the sixth largest banking group in Russia by total assets and the second largest privately-owned Russian universal banking group with total assets of RUB 977.0 billion and equity of RUB 96.7 billion under IFRS accounts for the six months ended 30 June 2013.

As at 30 June 2013, NOMOS had an extensive branch network in Russia with 300 offices in the economically important regions of the Russian Federation, with the majority of its business concentrated in Moscow, St Petersburg, Tyumen (including the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous district), the Novosibirsk and Khabarovsk regions.

NOMOS provides a full range of banking services to corporate, small business and retail clients. As at 30 June 2013, NOMOS served approximately 13,000 corporate customers, 85,600 small business clients and approximately 1.5m retail customers, including private banking clients.

NOMOS has long-term international credit ratings of BB- from Fitch and Ba3 from Moody's.