Croatian housing savings banks achieved a total gross profit of 20.1 million kuna in the first three months of this year, according to unaudited data from the Croatian National Bank (HNB), which is approximately 50 percent, or double the profit compared to the same period last year.
Analysts explain that all our savings banks operated profitably in the first quarter of this year, primarily due to a ten percent average growth in savings contracts compared to the same period last year. The largest gross profit, amounting to 8.8 million kuna, is held by Prva stambena štedionica. In second place is PBZ-stambena with 3.7 million, followed by Raiffeisen and Wüstenrot savings banks with profits of 3.6 million and 3.2 million kuna, respectively, while the youngest, HPB-stambena savings bank, recorded the smallest quarterly profit before taxation, amounting to 736 thousand kuna.
Interestingly, our savings banks achieved exceptionally good income results despite stagnation and a decline in assets. Namely, their total assets at the end of March this year amounted to just over 6.45 billion kuna, which is three percent lower than a year earlier. Of these, two, HPB-stambena and Wüstenrot savings banks, recorded a slight increase in assets, while the other three savings banks experienced a decline in the value of their assets compared to the situation a year ago. It is worth noting that all our housing savings banks, as well as commercial banks, today boast a solid capital adequacy ratio, which, for example, reached an average of 18.6 percent for savings banks at the end of March this year. (Nikola Prskalo)
