niCredit Bank Posts Nine-month Taxed Profit of SKK 1.619 Bln.

UniCredit Bank Slovakia, which originated in April 2007 in a merger of UniBanka and HVB Bank, posted nine-month pretax profit of SKK 1.998 billion (EUR 66.32 million) on a y/y increase by 31.7 percent. Bank's taxed profit grew 33 percent to SKK 1.619 billion (EUR 53.74 million). Bank's spokeswoman Zuzana Dudakova informed that mainly interest income linked to an increase in loans was behind this. Another reason was slower growth rate of costs compared with revenues. Operating costs rose by 7.2 percent y/y to SKK 1.767 billion (EUR 58.65 million €) and operating revenues swelled 13.3 percent to SKK 3.826 billion (EUR 127 million). The bank said in relation to the financial crisis that it does not invest in foreign securities in principle which means that its position was effected in no way by the decline of equity values on global markets.

Bank's balance sheet total stood at SKK 129.431 billion (EUR 4.296 billion) in late September: up 0.9 percent y/y owing to higher volume of client transactions. The volume of loans provided to clients went up by 13.5 percent to SKK 83.915 billion (EUR 2.785 billion). Client deposits increased 3.4 percent to SKK 76.228 billion (EUR 2.53 billion). Shareholders' equity rose from late September 2007 by 3.9 percent to SKK 13.71 billion (EUR 455.1 million €).

Austrian Bank Austria Creditanstalt, which is a member of the UniCredit Group, holds 99 percent of the bank's shares. UniCredit Bank was founded in a merger of UniBanka and HVB Bank Slovakia. Shareholders of both Slovak banks gave the final nod to the transaction at extraordinary annual meetings on February 20, 2007. On April 1 of the same year a new bank originated. It runs ten branches and 84 sub-branches in Slovakia.