We report a record net profit of EUR 38 million for the first 9 months of 2024
We report a recordnet profit of EUR 38 million for the first 9 months of 2024 – 34% higher YoY (based on unaudited consolidated financial results). Furthermore, we maintained our strong liquidity and capital positions. Strong performance can also be seen in all business lines.
Throughout the first nine months of 2024 we onboarded new merchant partners, including new verticals, and we are now present in 30.000 merchant partner check-out points on our main markets of operation – Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. With this reach we helped more customers finance their desired purchases and kept our leadership position in all three countries.
By end September 2024 weserviced 1.6 million loan applications in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, 40% more YoY. In this period we disbursed nearly 720.000 loans (39% higher YoY) in the amount of EUR 840 million – 25% more YoY. Moreover, the self-service channels contribute strongly to the business results, as 70% of the loan applications were made digitally.
We report 26% growth in total assets as to the end of September 2024, reaching EUR 1.70 billion. The gross loan portfolio increased to EUR 1.23 billion at the end of September 2024 (26% growth compared to Q3 2023), positioning us among top 10 banks on the Bulgarian market.
Based on such positive business performance, our operating income grew by 25% to EUR 186 million, mainly driven by 34% increase in net interest. This allowed operating profit for nine months 2024 to reach EUR 130 million.
The increase in the general expenses by 22% to EUR 87 million was mainly driven by the continuous investments in technology and AI solutions to support the development of new products in all markets and the investments in new business lines.
In addition, our deposit portfolio reached EUR 1.26 billion at the end of September 2024 – well outperforming the market and demonstrating a growth of 26% YoY. The main driver was retail term deposits portfolio, where the increase was even higher with 32% YoY.
Our efforts in constantly improving digital products and daily banking experience resulted in a significant milestone across all markets – a record over a quarter of a million customers used our mobile banking apps in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece each month during the last quarter, resulting in 20 million logins in Q3 2024 (2.3 times more compared to Q3 2023). The in-app features contributed strongly to business, especially to the savings portfolio as it was the most preferred choice in terms of deposit opening by the bank’s customers. New functionalities launched in Q3 of 2024 include: in-app shopping, instant payments via mobile number to customers of other banks, automated savings in Kasichka as well as allowing customers to see all BGN amounts equivalent in Euro.
At the end of Q3 2024 we had a strong and well secured position from both liquidity and capital sides – the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) being at 602% (much above regulatory minimum of 100% and banking sector’s average of 242%). After the shareholders’ decision to capitalize H1 2024 profit, the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) reached 23.7%. Our operations are showing improving discipline in terms of cost management and efficiency (46.5% cost to income ratio) and are combined with return on loan portfolio at 21.4%, allowing the return on assets (ROA) and the return on equity to reach 3.2% and 20.7%, respectively.
