FUIB will be giving loans to employees of its corporate customers

With the economy deteriorating, FUIB abandoned the strategy of aggressive market share growth and decided to develop its retail business through lending to payroll customers. The market players consider this format is less risky due to availability of trustworthy information about potential borrowers. Nevertheless, concentration only on the payroll cardholders makes the bank dependent on cooperation with the employers.

The economy stagnation forces the banks to abandon their aggressive lending strategies. FUIB, which two years ago promised in five years to secure its place among TOP 5 banks by assets (see Kommersant of 13 April 2011), yesterday admitted the impossibility of that goal. After acquisition of Dongorbank the position of FUIB – No 9 – has not changed for two years. “We have revised our strategy, as the Ukraine’s economy was growing slower than we expected. This is why we concentrate not on our market share increase, but on operating efficiency and customer service enhancement,” Sergey Chernenko, Chairman of the Management Board of FUIB, stated yesterday. Despite the 16% growth in its retail loan portfolio over 2012 the bank, instead of aggressive retail lending growth, chose the work with existing customers.

For this purpose FUIB will switch to the new format, Bank@Work, that provides for selling of products to employees of its corporate payroll customers. “The bank’s employee works in the premises of the corporate payroll customer delivering advisory services and selling consumer loans, credit cards and overdrafts. Currently this project is working in test mode,” said Mr Chernenko. “Such loans to payroll customers are of high quality, and the volume of overdue debt is very small.” At present FUIB serves 400 000 payroll customers. The potential retail portfolio volume within this project has not been disclosed. Mass lending in the open market will be pursued by another bank of the SCM Group – Renaissance Credit.

Source: Kommersant business paper of 27.03.2013.