Also emeafinance says VUB is the best bank in Slovakia

Bratislava, May 31, 2010 – VUB bank, member of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, received another prestigious international award for 2009 – Best Bank in Slovak Republic from emeafinance magazine. It is the fourth award in a row following the Bank of the Year awards from the weekly Trend and prestigious magazines The Banker and Euromoney.

According to emeafinance, VUB was the only major bank in Slovakia that managed to run its business in 2009 with a lower cost to income ratio than the year before. It has squeezed it below 45%, whilst its main competitor’s cost-income ratios were about 10 points higher. The quality risk management systems enabled VUB to hold the non-performing loan ratio 2% below the sector average. Emeafinance also recognized the VUB’s liquidity management and its activities within Corporate Social Responsibility. For these, VUB has recently won the main award for large companies in Via Bona competition organized by the Pontis Foundation.

“Even in the years of prosperity, we were doing prudent business and we always preferred the quality of our portfolio to market shares. The crisis proofed that this approach is correct, which has been also confirmed by the awards we received during the last year,” said Ignacio Jaquotot, CEO of VUB bank.

“VUB, for a second consecutive year, has demonstrated its market leadership by recording significant profits just marginally down over a record 2008, by maintaining a commitment to streamlining its business and finding efficiencies, and by increasing loan volumes during a severe domestic and external financial crisis and global recession,” said Christopher Moore, publisher and CEO of emeafinance.

The award went also to another member of Intesa Sanpaolo Group, Banca Intesa Beograd, which emeafinance declared the Best Bank in Serbia.

emeafinance is a bi-monthly magazine focused on the financial markets in the emerging regions of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since its launch in 2008 the magazine has become a leading source of information for its executive-level audience across the financial services and corporate sectors.