Smaller banks continue to struggle with growing provisions and their hands are tied when it comes to increasing commission fees, like bigger banks do. However, decreased borrowing costs and interest rates on loans, which have not yet fallen as much, make life easier for them, it writes.
Tadas Povilauskas, a Finasta analyst, said that Šiaulių Bankas and Ūkio Bankas failed to increase their loan portfolios during the first half, even though a considerable number of businesses were looking to refinance Snoras' loans.
"Given that the loan portfolio did not grow, we can say that neither of the two banks managed to take up the market share previously held by Snoras," he said.
Saulius Lenauskas, the deputy head of the Lithuanian brokerage unit of Estonia's LHV Bank, said, "It would have been naive to expect that Ūkio Bankas and Šiaulių Bankas would be the number one choice for former depositors of Snoras. That is why the deposit portfolio growth was not what it could be."
