Citadele Bank's long-term goals not confined to Baltic market alone

RIGA - The long-term goals of Latvia’s Citadele Bank are not confined to the Baltic market alone, the bank’s CEO Guntis Belavskis told LETA.

“Our bank’s long-term goals are definitely not confined to the Baltic market alone. However, to talk about any other markets in the next coming years would be too ambitious. Our market share in Lithuania and Estonia is still relatively small. We still need to work for a couple of years to expand the market share in the Baltics to approximately 10 percent, which would be natural for our bank. For a bank with a product and technology package like ours, there is a natural place in the market,” Belavskis said.

He noted that Citadele is a local bank with products adjusted to this particular market and technologies developed specifically for local clients.

“We see that in Latvia, despite various crises, image problems and competition, we have not only kept but even increased our market share. We have still plenty of work to do to achieve this natural market share in Estonia and Lithuania. In Estonia, for instance, we will launch a much more extensive services package this spring,” the Citadele CEO said.

Asked about the bank’s performance in 2018, Belavskis said that the year was closed positively. “I have a good feeling about the past year. When we release our financial results there will be no surprises. The basic results of the year are definitely meeting the management’s expectations. Especially considering that the industry was in a crisis and there were lots of uncertainties,” Belavskis said.

At the end of September 2018, Citadele ranked fourth largest bank in Latvia by assets.