The number of clients from medium-sized business segment increased by 14% in 2019, due to a new model of clients’ attraction and servicing, and the development of business in different regions of Russia.
In 2019, regional teams focused on the customer base growth and building of portfolio of clients with a higher-than-average return profile on the market: these are, first of all, companies that conduct foreign economic activities; clients with a large amount of funds on the accounts, and subsidiaries of international groups.
In the syndicated lending market, ROSBANK, as part of the Societe Generale group, acted as the organizer of ten transactions totaling USD 4.5 billion. The main borrowers are major Russian companies and banks, including Ural mining and metallurgical company, Aсron, Сredit Bank of Moscow, Gazprom (Paris), Sovcombank, Cian.ru and others.
In 2019, ROSBANK's trade finance portfolio grew by 23% and reached RUB 166 billion by the year-end. The growth has been achieved due to participation in projects of major clients, which invest to fixed assets (CAPEX programs), and purchases of imported equipment. The development of businesses with medium- and large-sized companies engaged in foreign economic activities also contributed to the growth of the trade finance portfolio. ROSBANK's market share of import letter of credit has increased from 5,8% in 2018 to 11% in 2019. A stream for the issuance of bank guarantees in the framework of public procurement under Federal law 44/223 has been launched, which allowed efficient and high-quality processing of a large number of guarantees with standard conditions.
In 2019, ROSBANK's commission income from cash management products showed a record growth of 27%. High performance was achieved thanks to the development of individual services and solutions for customers.
ROSBANK is the largest international factor in the Russian market. In 2019, ROSBANK's factoring portfolio grew by more than 70%. About half of the current portfolio is formed by transactions with regional clients. The regional portfolio for the year grew by 86.5% and amounted to RUB 12.5 billion. The current results are achieved due to the systematic introduction of new products, such as pre-delivery, international and agency factoring.
ROSBANK also continues to improve its digital solutions. A new Internet Bank for legal entities was implemented, offering a high-tech remote service format and a user-friendly interface. Turnover on currency exchange rate conversion has grown significantly in FX Aggregator, a platform that aggregates banks' currency exchange offers. In addition, ROSBANK introduced host-2-host exchange of financial documents with PJSC MMC Norilsk Nickel, which allowed to increase by several times the number of transactions and document flow.
Capital markets and investment banking activities ended the year with highest profitability ever, supported by a 18% growth in 2019, and fostered by digitalization of operations, a key enabler of sound pricing and execution for large corporates as well as development of business with medium-sized companies.
A detailed analysis of the Group’s financial result and the main elements of the report are available by the link.