CEC Bank reports net profit of 332 million RON, up by 21 percent in the first nine months

CEC Bank registered a preliminary net profit of 332.40 million RON after the first 9 months of 2021, increasing by 21.2 percent compared to the same period last year. The bank recorded growth in all business segments, the value of assets increasing by 20.5 percent compared to September 2020.

“In the first nine months of the year, we continued to finance the economy and strengthen CEC Bank’s market position. We granted new loans worth about 9 billion RON and we recorded an increase in the total loan portfolio of 15.1 percent. At the same time, the process of transformation and modernization of the bank is advancing, with a focus on digitalization, simplification and an organizational culture that puts the customer first. It was a period in which we completed many projects: we launched online accounts for SMEs, the Smartphone POS application – which turns mobile devices into POS for accepting online payment with cards, we modernized our internal IT network, we were openers of roads in open-banking,” said Bogdan Neacșu, general manager of CEC Bank.

The largest increase was registered in the mortgage loans segment, the bank’s portfolio totalling over 20,000 such loans, with a cumulative value of 3.15 billion RON. In the first nine months of 2021, CEC Bank granted almost 4,000 mortgages, up 34 percent from the same period in 2020.

In the segment of consumer loans and card loans, the growth was lower than in the case of mortgages, of about 7 percent, in line with the market average and reflecting the appetite for savings, which remains high.

In the companies’ segment, the financing portfolio registered an increase of 14.2 percent, the SME Invest program still playing an important role in facilitating companies’ access to financing. Financing for current activity increased by 22.8 percent, double that recorded for investment loans (11.1 percent). About half of the increase in the portfolio in the balance comes from loans granted under government programs, including SMEs Invest.

Deposits from customers reached 38.63 billion RON at the end of the third quarter, up 24.2 percent compared to the same period in 2020. The increase was higher in the segment of current account and card balances (+ 28.2 percent), in line with the strategy of CEC Bank to position itself as the home bank of Romanians, preferred for day-to-day operations.