Commentary on the financial results of SEB in 2022

Today, the SEB Group published its financial results for 2022, which can be found here: www.sebgroup.com/ir.

Allan Parik, Chairman of the Board of SEB Pank, commented on the results of SEB units in Estonia as follows:

Last year, SEB financed the Estonian economy with 2.3 billion euros

Despite the economic recession that started in the third quarter, the nominal growth of the Estonian GDP was fast in 2022, partly due to inflation that, at times, exceeded 20 per cent. Last year, SEB financed new projects worth 1.7 billion euros for companies and 636 million euros for private customers. The portfolio of loans granted to companies and private customers grew by 9.5 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively, over the year. In total, SEB financed the business plans of nearly 8,000 companies and helped acquire more than 4,700 new homes in 2022.

Corporate deposits grew by 13.2 per cent in 2022, while private deposits grew by only 0.5 per cent. In 2021, the deposits of business customers grew by 14 per cent and the deposits of private customers by 16 per cent. Thus, the saving capacity of companies remained the same last year, but private customers had to increasingly use their savings.

The key phrase for 2022 was investments in energy efficiency

The key phrase for 2022 was increasing energy efficiency. Companies and individuals installed solar panels with the help of SEB, and apartment associations actively took out renovation loans to improve the energy efficiency of residential buildings. Leasing of electric cars doubled in one year. Since last year, SEB has been offering favourable solutions for financing energy-efficient housing.

Sustainability also became more important when making investment decisions. 90 per cent of the investment funds of SEB meet international sustainability requirements and 70 per cent of the pension fund investments of SEB have been made with sustainability principles in mind. The largest individual investments of the pension funds of SEB include Enefit Green and Ignitis, the renewable energy flagships in our region.

SEB is recruiting 500 new employees this year

In 2023, SEB will recruit 500 new employees in the Baltic countries, 100 of them for completely new product development and IT positions to launch new products and product innovations. Many of the positions to be filled are not related to a specific location, and therefore, we hope to recruit as many new colleagues as possible from Estonia. This is the biggest recruitment project of the bank in the last ten years. We believe that this is a favourable moment, considering the general labour market outlook, meaning that SEB can offer many talents an interesting new challenge during the economic downturn.

The profit of SEB in 2022 was 115.9 million euros

SEB Pank Grupp (the Group) ended 2022 with a profit of 115.9 million euros, compared to 99.4 million euros in the previous year. In 2022, the operating income of the Group reached 206.9 million euros (177 million euros in the same period of 2021) and operating expenses 69.1 million euros (62.8 million euros in the same period of 2021). The bank reduced its reserves for loan losses by 0.1 million euros in 2022 (during the same period in 2021, the bank decreased the reserves by 3.2 million euros). Income tax was calculated at 19.8 million euros in 2022 (15.8 million euros in the same period in 2021). In total, SEB paid 38.7 million euros in taxes to the Estonian state last year.

Additional information:

Silver Vohu
Head of the Marketing and Communications Division
SEB Pank

Telephone: +372 665 5393
Mobile: +372 511 1170
Address Tornimäe 2, 15010, Tallinn, Estonia
Email silver.vohu@seb.ee