Anadi Bank posts best half-year result in its history - New record result expected for the full year 2023

Vienna, 11 July 2023 – Anadi Bank has once again achieved record numbers for the first half of 2023: The operating pre-tax result makes a significant leap to around EUR 10 million - which corresponds to a doubling compared to the previous year. With an excellent balance sheet and business structure, strategically aligned for the interest rate tournaround in traditional banking, combined with high levels of growth and innovation in digital business areas, Anadi Bank`s profit momentum thus continues unabated. The net interest margin has doubled compared to 2022 and is now already 1.9% at overall bank level, with a rise to at least 2.3% by the end of the year due to lag effects in the second half of the year and a further increase in the interest margin forecast for 2024. A key driver for this is the digital business and the branch banking, which stood out as the highest margin of all business segments with a net interest margin of almost 3.5% in the first half of 2023.

In addition to doubling net interest income, Anadi Bank furthermore managed to achieve positive cost of risk in the first half of 2023. "Against the backdrop of a challenging environment, this strong risk result can primarily be attributed to our business in Carinthia, the high-risk culture in all business areas and the strict risk management and risk monitoring in the digital business", explains Ferdinand Wenzl, CRO/CFO of Anadi Bank.

"We demonstrate strong profit momentum, which, thanks to our successful implementation of Strategy Phases 1.0 and 2.0, is now based on a bank-wide increase in earnings under Strategy 3.0 - developed in the fourth quarter of 2022 - without raising the Bank's capital requirements. This sustainably increasing and still rising income performance, in combination with our cost, capital and risk cost efficiency, enables us to generate organic capital, which we primarily allocate towards extensive investments in our digital roadmap", emphasizes Christian Kubitschek, CEO of Anadi Bank.

Full-year outlook 2023: Further sustainable increase in income and profit expected - Expansion of the digital business with high strategic priority

Already in 2022, the best annual result in the company's history was achieved with a net profit of EUR 11 million. Based on the excellent half-year result for 2023 and the unbroken momentum on the income side, as well as in the digital business areas, the Executive Board confirms its outlook that another record-breaking result is expected for the full year2023. This outlook is based on a further increase in the net interest margin across all business areas - in the context of the normalisation of the interest rate environment - and on digital growth initiatives scheduled to commence in the second half of 2023.

"Since 2020, we have increased our profit every year and are now where we have always wanted to be since the launch of Strategy 1.0: sustainable profit momentum across all business lines, driven by revenue growth, supported by high cost and capital efficiency awareness and based on a strict risk management culture. In this context, our traditional business areas shine with excellent results, while our rapidly growing digital business is increasingly contributing to the banks revenues, characterised by high innovative strength and enormous scalability. We will continue to invest massively in the expansion of our digital business. This can also be seen in the fact that we are once again strongly expanding the number of staff in the digital area and want to expand from currently over 100 FTEs to up to 140 FTEs in the next two years. The recruitment of suitable employees - on the internal and external labour market - for our ambitious digital roadmap is therefore a high strategic priority for the Executive Board and will be supported by innovative HR approaches in the coming months. The strategic goal is clear: we aim to become the preferred digital banking employer in our region, standing out with flat hierarchies, innovative working time and workplace models, high innovative strength as well as digital growth beyond Carinthia and Austria," says CEO Christian Kubitschek.

About Anadi Bank

With its Retail Banking, Corporate Banking, Public Finance and Digital Banking business segments, Anadi Bank offers personal customer care via a multi-channel approach with 10 branches in Carinthia and a team of customer care agents. Anadi Bank also focuses on easy-to-use digital services and is developing its portfolio into a top online banking offering for the DACH region: most recently with the launch of a digital SME loan as part of its expansion into Germany, as well as with the launch of the tablet-based mobile sales cooperation with Austria's financial service providers under the "Anadi Connect" brand and the unique sales cooperation under the MARIE brand, which brings banking services to tobacconists. The digital DNA of the bank is visible in the bank's internal digital area, in which approx. 40% (excluding the branch network) of Anadi Bank's 250 employees work. For the approximately 58,000 clients and as the principal bank of numerous companies in trade, industry, and real estate, as well as many municipalities and public sector institutions, the institute uses the advantages of long-standing relationships of trust between clients and client advisors, high innovative strength, digital competence, and lean structures.