Valiant, a Bern-based regional bank, increased its full-year profit by a fifth last year and plans to increase the number of client advisers by 80 in a bid to expand its business.
Valiant, which caters for small- and medium-sized companies as well as retail clients, had a full-year profit of 114.4 million Swiss francs last year, 21 percent more than in 2014, the bank said in a statement today. The net interest income increased 8.1 percent to 287.8 million francs.
«We have been able to confirm the reversal of trend of last year, despite the further deterioration of the interest rate conditions,» said Valiant Chief Executive Markus Gygax in the statement.
Expansion Plans
Assets under management rose 1.1 percent to 18.1 billion francs and the mortgage volumes by 2 percent to 20.4 billion. Valiant proposes to raise the dividend by 0.4 francs to 3.6 francs a share.
Based on its success and thanks to the new opportunities that digital banking offers, Valiant plans to expand its operations countrywide. It will open two new branches per year and hire 80 additional client advisers to cope with the expansion.
Revised Medium-Term Profit Target
Starting in 2017, Valiant will use up to 10 percent of its annual profit to invest in digital banking, its presence in the market and the knowledge of its employees.
With interest rates remaining negative, Valiant said it won't achieve the profit target for the medium term as defined in 2013. Instead of an annual profit of 150 million by 2017, it now hopes to generate net income of about 120 to 130 million francs.
For the current year however, the outlook remains positive and the bank expects a «slightly higher» full-year profit compared with 2015.
