Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Lukas Bank from the French Credite Agricole group would like to merge with the network of Bank BPH but it is the investor who will decide. For the time being, Lukas Bank grows alone.
Lukas Bank retains 26 percent credit growth this year, one of the fastest rates among Polish banks who on average increase credits by 10 percent.
“This is mainly due to credit cards. About 60 percent of our clients use credit cards and do not pay the credits back in the period when no interests are counted”, Maciej Witucki, Lukas Bank CEO explained.
Today, the value of consumer credits amounts to PLN 3.8 billion (EUR 931m) and is planned to increase to PLN 5 billion till the end of the year. The bank plans to increase the number of credit cards issued from 650,000 to 800,000 in December. The second sector Lukas Bank is going to develop are accounts. Their number should grow from 695,000 to 750,000.
The development requires bigger chain. The company wants to add 30 new outlets to have 281 of them this year. Although it will cost PLN 90m, the bank is going to generate a higher net income than last year, when it was PLN 278m. Maciej Witucki, similarly to Bastien Charpentier, Credit Agricole deputy CEO, believes that 200 outlets of Bank BPH would perfectly suit Lukas Bank. According to the agreement between the Polish government and Unicredit, 200 of Bank BPH outlets will be sold, while the other part merged with Pekao. Maciej Witucki believes, however, that the price may be much higher than Credit Agricole would like to spend.
“The more so that our shareholder is looking for investment targets in countries where he is still absent”, Maciej Witucki added.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.245)