Throughout the first nine months of 2024 tbi onboarded new merchant partners, including new verticals, and is now present in 30,000 merchant partner check-out points on its main markets of operation – Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. With this impressive reach, the bank helped more customers finance their desired purchases and kept tbi's leadership position in all three countries.
By end September 2024 tbi bank serviced 1.6 million loan applications in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece. In this period, the bank disbursed nearly 720,000 loans (39% higher YoY) in the amount of €840 million – 25% more YoY. Moreover, the self-service channels contribute strongly to the business results, as 70% of the loan applications were made digitally.
tbi reports 26% YoY growth in total assets as to the end of September 2024, reaching €1.7 billion. The gross loan portfolio increased to €1.23 billion at the end of September 2024 (26% YoY growth).
Based on such positive business performance, tbi bank's operating income grew by 25% YoY reaching €186 million, mainly driven by a 34% increase in net interest income. This allowed operating profit for nine months 2024 to reach €130 million.
The increase in the bank's general expenses by 22% YoY to EUR 87 million was mainly driven by the continuous investments in technology and AI solutions to support the development of new products in all markets and the investments in new business lines.
In addition, tbi bank's deposit portfolio reached EUR 1.26 billion at the end of September 2024 – well outperforming the market and demonstrating a growth of 26% YoY. The main driver was the retail term deposits portfolio, where the increase was even higher (32% YoY).
At the end of Q3 2024 the bank had a strong and well secured position from both liquidity and capital sides – the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) being at 602% (much above regulatory minimum of 100% and banking sector's average of 242%). After the shareholders' decision to capitalize H1 2024 profit, the capital adequacy ratio (CAR) reached 23.7%. tbi bank's operations are showing improving discipline in terms of cost management and efficiency (46.5% cost to income ratio) and are combined with return on loan portfolio at 21.4%, allowing the return on assets (ROA) and the return on equity to reach 3.2% and 20.7%, respectively.
“Our constantly growing customer base in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece is what makes us happy and contributes to our strong financial results. I want to thank our customers for their trust as well as our passionate and dedicated team, which remains the backbone of our success and constant innovation. As we are approaching the holiday season, we are working hard to make sure our customers are supported in all aspects of their financial lives,” says Petr Baron, CEO of tbi fs.