1 January—31 March 2017*
- Lending to the public rose 16% to SEK 21,713 million
- Operating income increased by a total of 11% to SEK 748 million
- Operating profit increased by 27% to SEK 322 million
- Earnings per share rose 26% to SEK 1.24
- C/I before credit losses (excl. Insurance) was 42.7% (47.6)
- The credit loss ratio was 1.9% (2.1%)
Statement by the CEO
Sustained strong growth and fast pace in digitalisation
2017 began with a record-breaking quarter and sustained strong growth in all segments. The loan portfolio grew 16 per cent to SEK 21.7 billion. Growth was driven by both Payment Solutions and Consumer Loans and was noted in all geographical markets. Our insurance operations performed better year-on-year due to, for example, new partners and the discontinuation of the UK travel insurance operations. Profit after tax for the Group increased 17 per cent excluding nonrecurring costs to SEK 247 million, driven by higher business volumes and continued strong control over both costs and credit losses. Overall, this meant that our performance was a stable improvement on our targets.
In retail finance, some of the more recently won business led to volumes with slightly lower NBI margins. However, these volumes also have lower administration costs and higher credit quality, which had a positive total impact on profitability.
Launches of digital innovations continue
The work on launching new and innovative digital solutions for our retail finance partners and customers is continuing. We also secured additional retail finance partners during the quarter that will make use of our e-commerce check-out solution.
In the fourth quarter of 2016, Payment Solutions test launched a digitised credit application process, allowing customers to sign in-store credit applications using their Mobile BankID. The stores have no papers to process and customers can apply quickly and easily. The service is now available at all of our stores in Sweden and Denmark and more than 50 per cent of all new applications in Sweden are now made digitally. We are currently launching the service in Norway and Finland and expect the digital application to be available to all stores in these markets at the start of the second quarter. This is an important innovation that simplifies processes for both stores and customers. It is also a benefit to the environment since it eliminates the need for paper.
We also launched our Loyo Pay mobile app on a broad front during the quarter – it is the first mobile app to handle both e-commerce and offline payments in the same app. It was developed together with Mastercard and uses both near field communication (NFC) and Masterpass for e-commerce payments. We are the first to offer such a product in northern Europe.
We are now working with several interest groups in the retail sector to accelerate use and we welcome launches of similar products by our colleagues in the industry in the near future. Such moves would drive up interest for this type of innovation and benefit both the retail sector and customers.
40 years of innovative products
We turned 40 during the quarter. Over the years, we have spearheaded developments in the industry in many ways, particularly in recent years by continuously launching new digital products, such as Loyo Pay and digital applications. We continue to see a fast pace in the development of new digital products and a number of highly attractive sales-promoting products will be launched in 2017.
About Resurs Holding
Resurs Holding (Resurs), which operates through the subsidiaries Resurs Bank and Solid Försäkring, is the leader in retail finance in the Nordic region, offering payment solutions, consumer loans and niche insurance products. Since its start in 1977, Resurs Bank has established itself as a leading partner for sales-driven payment and loyalty solutions in retail and e-commerce, and Resurs has thus built a customer base of slightly more than 5 million private customers in the Nordics. Resurs Bank has had a banking licence since 2001 and is under the supervision of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. The Resurs Group operates in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. At the end of the first quarter of 2017, the Group had 731 employees and a loan portfolio of SEK 21.7 billion. Resurs is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm.
*Certain performance measures provided in this section have not been prepared in accordance with IFRS. Definitions of key ratios are provided on page 30. The reasons for using alternative performance measures and reconciliation against information in the financial statements are provided on the website under “Financial information.” The figures in parentheses refer to 31 March 2016 in terms of financial position, and to the year-earlier period in terms of profit/loss items.
This information is information that Resurs Holding AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 9 May CET on 7.30 2017.