Letter from the Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Dear Sirs and Madams,
On behalf of Supervisory Board, I have the pleasure to summarize the performance of the Bank Pocztowy Capital Group in 2015.
Undoubtedly, the year 2015 was challenging for the Polish banking sector. The net profit of the banking sector dropped by nearly 30 percent comparing to 2014 due to lower interest and commission income and the recent regulatory charges.
The Bank Pocztowy Capital Group, however, has managed to successfully face these challenges. Significantly, the scale of operations of the Group has grown and in December 2015 the number of clients approached 1.5 million. The Company also reported record high sales of cash loans, which exceeded PLN 1 billion. Consequently, thanks to business growth and cost discipline the Capital Group reposted satisfactory performance in 2015. The Group’s income amounted to PLN 327.5 million and was slightly lower than in 2014. At the same time, the Capital Group incurred additional one-off expenses of PLN 15.5 million, related to enhancing stability of the Polish banking sector. In effect, the net profit amounted to PLN 33.9 million.
The Supervisory Board was informed about business and financial performance, as well as organizational and infrastructural changes introduced in the Bank on an ongoing basis. In response to dynamic market changes and the new strategy of Poczta Polska, which assumed an increased share of financial services in the Poczta Polska Group strategy, Bank Pocztowy set a new strategic goal – to become the leader in consumer banking in provincial Poland. Consequently, in April 2015 the Board accepted a new development strategy of Bank Pocztowy for the period until 2018.
Bank Pocztowy will focus on a well-priced and simple offer. Importantly, it will encourage further integration with Poczta Polska. A major element of the strategy is to replace the universal banking with specialized well-priced banking services responding to the requirements of mass consumers. The Bank will also accelerate integration with Poczta Polska, which is constantly being changed and modernized, and automate and streamline processes. The strategy will enable growing the value of Bank Pocztowy in the long run.
The Bank’s operations, its stability and development strategies have been positively opinioned by potential investors participating in initial preparations to the IPO. However, considering disadvantageous conditions on the capital market, the Bank’s Management Board and its stakeholders decided to suspend preparations to the IPO on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Still, I am certain that investors' opinions provide optimistic outlooks for the Bank and confirm that the Bank's growth strategy has a great potential for success. Importantly, financial market players perceive Bank Pocztowy as a trustful and safe business. At the same time, the Bank’s shareholders unanimously agreed to inject PLN 60 million to the Bank to enable its further growth.
As Supervisory Board Chairman, I am sure that in the coming years Bank Pocztowy, supported by its Supervisory Board, will growth safely and steadily in the structures of the Poczta Polska Capital Group and it will benefit from strategic partnership with other Group entities.
Best regards,
Jerzy Jóźkowiak
Chairman of the Supervisory Board