Company briefs - 2013-02-07

SEB Bank’s profit after tax and provisions amounted to 14.1 million lats (20.1 million euros) in 2012, reports Nozare.lv. The total amount of deposits at SEB was 1.26 billion lats as of Dec. 31, 2012, which is 21 percent more than at end-2011. The bank’s loan portfolio was 2.06 billion lats, the same as at the end of 2011. The amount of new loans issued by SEB in 2012 was 533 million lats - an 11 percent increase on 2011. Seventy-three percent of these loans were issued to companies. The bank’s capital and reserves was 305.8 million lats on Dec. 31 last year, whereas the bank’s assets stood at 2.77 billion lats. SEB group companies’ income in Latvia totaled 78.4 million lats last year, 0.5 percent less than in 2011. The group’s profit before provisions amounted to 40.5 million lats. The capital adequacy ratio of SEB group in Latvia was 18.95 percent on Dec. 31 last year, whereas the bank’s liquidity ratio was 50.77 percent. SEB President Ainars Ozols says that 2012 was the most successful year for the bank over the past five years in terms of business activity.

Data from Swedbank Estonia indicates that every 17th bank account of a private individual is arrested, reports Public Broadcasting. Swedbank’s private individuals–clients have nearly 1.2 million active accounts, with 70,000 arrested. Over half a million claims have been submitted against the arrested accounts, mainly by court executors and the Tax Board. The claims are mostly for parking or traffic fines, unpaid bills, tax debts and debts to telecommunications services. “A separate large group we can point to is claims against SMS loan debtors,” said Swedbank’s retail trade division head Ulla Ilisson. The bank recently developed a new solution that enables a part of those whose accounts have been arrested to get cash free of charge from ATMs, amounting to a subsistence minimum.