K&H Bank records all-time high profit of HUF 41.8 billion - The banking group acquired 60 000 new clients and increased its loan market share

K&H Bank recorded an all-time high profit of HUF 41.8 billion in 2017, representing an underlying 18% increase yoy if excluding the one-off gain on VISA shares in 2016. It realised a net profit of HUF 9.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2017. Both the net interest (+4.4%) and the fee income (+3.5%) increased yoy driven by higher business volumes and the acquisition of 60 000 new clients, offsetting the negative impact from the low interest rate environment. 

K&H granted a total of HUF 425 billion new loans in 2017 representing the financing of nearly 32 000 individuals and more than 3100 projects of the SME and Corporate clients. This means that K&H granted more than HUF 1 billion new loans each day. K&H’s loan portfolio market share increased from 10.2% to 10.5% yoy. Loan growth outperformed deposit growth of 9% and 7%, respectively, improving the LTD from 60.5% to 61.2% and hence with this the bank is playing its  role in supporting the economy.

 “This solid financial performance is the result of our focus on fulfilling the changing customer needs every single day”, announced David Moucheron, CEO of K&H Group.

In 2017 K&H disbursed HUF 104 billion retail mortgage,  a 32% growth yoy and HUF 24 billion  cash loans, a 65% increase yoy. K&H's SME and Corporate new loans more than doubled compared to 2016 and reached HUF 297 billion, a 134% growth yoy. The SME and Corporate loan portfolio grew by 80 billion, an 11% growth yoy. 

K&H’s market share in lending increased from 10.1% to 10.5% in 2017 yoy in retail, and from 10.4% to 10.5% in the corporate segment.  Mortgage loans’ new production market share reached 14.7%, cash loans’ new production market share reached 7.7%. 

“K&H Bank further strengthened its position as the second largest player in the market in terms of both total assets as well as customer volumes, with assets crossing the mark of HUF 3 trillion in balance sheet in 2017”, said Attila Gombás, CFO of K&H Group.

In addition to these commercial results K&H continued to invest in digitalisation to offer ever simpler and smoother banking and insurance solutions to its clients. “At the end of 2017 the number of users of our mobile bank application reached 165 000, more than doubling yoy. Based on customer evaluation our mobile bank is ranked no 1 in the market. The recent launch of our in-store payment with mobile phone application is a success. After just two months, some 13 000 cards were registered and used more than 100 000 times for payment. Our investments in digitalisation to provide convenient and fast services to our clients will continue”, added David Moucheron.

Nik Vincke, CEO of K&H Insurance commented: “K&H Insurance realised an after-tax profit of HUF 2.9 billion in 2017, representing a 3% increase yoy, despite the HUF 0.6 billion higher insurance tax. It grew its non-life gross written premium with 18% compared to 2016, whilst the life business line brought strong business performance with 25% growth in pure risk products. In order to increase our service level and meet the increasing expectations of our customers we implemented an end-to-end digital claims handling system that further reduced the claim settlement time for our clients significantly.”

K&H Bank’s unaudited, consolidated results according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) were as follows: