OREANDA-NEWS. Bank Petrocommerce became the winner of a prestigious Global Banking & Finance Review Award in the category "Fastest Growing SME Lending Business Russia 2014". The results are published on the web-site of the Global Banking & Finance Review.

The winner was selected based on the research, which comprised analysis of the financial statements and additional information allowing to enhance unbiased evaluation. The analysis took into account several key features of the SME lending business model, in particular, volume trends throughout 2013, loan book quality, terms and stages of implementation of the SME lending programme, etc. The experts noted that the Bank's pace of SME lending growth was very high by Russian market standards. In two years, Bank Petrocommerce increased the SME loan book to RUB 10 bln, while steadily building technologies, sales and communication channels with all market players, including government entities. Consequently, today, the Bank maintains active cooperation both with SME Bank and 12 regional funds for SME support. Besides, less than within two years after the programme launch, Bank Petrocommerce reached the level of the market leaders in terms of SME lending with the monthly volume of loans worth over RUB 1 bln. Apart from growth rate and lending volumes, analysts also assessed quality indicators of the loan portfolio. For instance, they underscored that overdue loans to SMEs constituted 0.05%, an extremely low level for the Russian market, which indicates a very high quality of the portfolio.

"Winning a Global Banking & Finance Review Award is yet another recognition of our efforts. When we entered this new market two years ago, we positioned ourselves as highly professional players with ambitious plans. Time has proved that our ambitions were well grounded: the Bank made an unprecedented breakthrough on the Russian SME lending market thus meriting this prestigious international award. I am confident that this is not our last victory", - says Victor Okopny, Head of the Bank's SME Lending Department.

Global Banking & Finance Review Awards were incepted in 2011 by Global Banking & Finance Review, a web-site with a few millions of unique visitors annually from 200 countries of the world, where Russia accounts for over 10%. Global Banking & Finance Review Awards were created to recognize companies of all sizes, which are prominent by innovation and achievement in particular areas of expertise and excellence within the financial world. The winners are selected on the basis of unbiased expert evaluation.