K&H Bank reports a net profit of HUF 37.4 billion and K&H Insurance books a net profit of HUF 4.2 billion in 2021H1

As Guy Libot, CEO of K&H Group, briefly summarised: “K&H's good financial results are mainly due to the strong growth in loan volumes, which has resulted in higher market share in new retail lending. K&H has introduced new market-leading innovations, such as Google Pay and the instant account opening service. K&H has also reviewed and transformed its lending and investment strategies, focusing on sustainability in the most affected sectors and seeking to strengthen awareness and commitment to this matter both within the organisation and among customers. In 2021 K&H Bank achieves carbon neutrality. To this end, we have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by 56% since 2015, use only green energy and trained our staff in our business banking area for sustainability measures.”

Financial results, H1 2021

In the first half of 2021, K&H Bank's net profit reached HUF 37.4 billion. K&H Bank's underlying profit grew by 22% year-on-year and reached HUF 31.2 billion. The financial institution achieved an increase of 13% year-on-year in loans and 11% growth in deposits. In the first half of 2021, K&H’s new loan production reached HUF 279 billion in total. Total new retail lending reached HUF 150 billion, an increase of 44% year-on-year.

‘K&H Bank continues to play an active role in financing the Hungarian economy, households, small businesses, large corporates and the public sector (the state and municipalities). Our total loan volume increased by 13% year-on-year to HUF 1 875 billion and our market share continued to grow in new retail lending. Our new mortgage housing loan production increased by 55 %, while the market expanded by 33%. K&H was one of the first on the market to launch a subsidised home renovation loan in February 2021. By the end of June this year, the bank disbursed close to 500 subsidised home renovation loans in the value of HUF 2.4 billion and the average loan amount was HUF 5.3 million.  K&H's market share in home renovation type of housing loans is 11.8%. As for cash loans, the ratio of loans indicating home renovation as their purpose increased from 27% to 38% year-on-year. The value of baby boom loans disbursed by the bank grew by 33% compared to the same period of last year, while the market shrank by 9%. The bank increased the production of cash loans by 20% in line with the market. In the first half of 2021, we concluded loan agreements worth HUF 222 billion in total under the “NHP Hajrá!’ scheme and HUF 57 billion under the EXIM Compensation Loan Programme. In our balance sheet, the volume of government bonds reached HUF 1 120 billion, which corresponds to an increase of 8% year-on-year,’ – explained Attila Gombás, Chief Financial Officer of K&H Group.

K&H Insurance results

In 2021H1 net profit reached HUF 4.2 billion. In Non-Life, premium income reached HUF 28.5 billion due to dynamically growing Casco, Home and SME business lines that are compensating slight declining MTPL volumes. Life brought strong business performance with a 37% yoy growth in regular unit-linked business and 10% yoy growth in regular risk life products.

“The impact of pandemic COVID-19 on our results can be realised at strong solvency 2 ratio of 231% and increased mortality and morbidity claim frequency during the third wave of pandemic, also the number of claims in non-life went down during the lockdown and recovered meanwhile back to normal level, “ - Nik Vincke, CEO of K&H Insurance explained

bank and insurance in your pocket

K&H has continued its digital transformation in innovation and keeps focusing on the development of banking and insurance services available on mobile. Every fourth baby boom loan and every second cash loan is applied for via digital channels (e-bank, mobile bank). The Payment Protection Insurance can now by concluded in K&H mobile bank together with the cash loan, since the introduction more than half of the end-to-end cash loans were concluded with PPI. K&H Insurance launched instant electronic green card service for MTPL clients and by now more than 450 000 green cards were sent to MTPL clients in digital format. This year also K&H introduced its fully online account opening service, which allows customers to access the full range of account services on their mobile, and receive a digitalised bank card straight away, in about 10 minutes.   

”As of today 40% of account opening happens through K&H instant account opening application. In April we introduced a smartphone-based payment solution, making not only Apple Pay but also Google Pay available to customers, thus giving another push to mobile payments. The value of transactions through mobile payment solutions in the second quarter reached HUF 15 billion going up by 50% compared to Q1. Since April, customers have also been able to set up regular investments in their mobile bank application with ease: they can open a securities account or set up a regular monthly purchase transaction for selected investment units. In August we launched a donation campaign for buying innovative equipment for the National Ambulance Service connected to digital payment use. Results show that in just one month the number of mobile payments has increased by 16 percent. The number of the bank’s digitally active customers reached 600,000, meaning that 82% of K&H’s customer base is already digitally active.” -  added Balázs Németh, Head of Innovation at K&H Group.

sustainability at K&H

In the first half of 2021 K&H sold socially responsible investments (SRIs) in the value of HUF 13.6 billion and more than 20% of gross sales of new funds is already SRI. Between March and the end of June, the stock of SRI funds grew by 38% to HUF 43.8 billion. Socially responsible investments are even more popular among clients who enter the world of investments using the new ‘K&H regular investment’ function of K&H mobile bank. Through this channel, more than 40% of customers have chosen to invest into instruments that take environmental and social impacts into consideration.

“Sustainability permeates our organization, which is also demonstrated by the fact that K&H remains one of the market leaders in the financing of renewable energies, whose volume reached HUF 100 billion by the end of June 2021. 85% of commercial real estate loans related to office developments, i.e. nearly HUF 50 billion, were granted for buildings with a green rating/pre-rating,” - stressed Guy Libot, CEO of K&H Group.

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