Despite the obstacles, bank boss Franz Gasselsberger remains confident for the year as a whole, albeit with a certain amount of caution. The savings rate of private customers, on the other hand, is already being weighed down by inflation.
In the first half of 2022, the bank’s lending volume increased by 5.8 percent to EUR 19 billion. According to Gasselsberger, the commercial customer business in particular is going well. Financing volumes in the segment increased by 5.7 percent to EUR 14.9 billion. There was also continued brisk demand for loans in the private customer segment. The financing volume grew by 6.4 percent to EUR 4.1 billion. However, new contracts have slowed down somewhat, with a decline of 2.2 percent.
“Saving is becoming more and more of a bottleneck”
Decreases are also noticeable in people’s savings. Compared to the previous year, savings deposits fell by EUR 235.7 million or 9.0 percent to around EUR 2.4 billion. “Saving is becoming more and more of a bottleneck for private households,” said the Oberbank boss on Thursday at the presentation of the half-year results. Inflation is making itself felt here, reducing households’ disposable income.
At EUR 86.4 million, the bank’s half-year profit was around a quarter below the profit for the previous year. The strong market volatility and a weaker at-equity investment result had a negative impact. The latter is primarily influenced by the participation of voestalpine and almost halved from EUR 43.8 million to EUR 22.7 million.
Cautious outlook
On paper, the Upper Austrian Oberbank is rather cautious about the second half of the year. According to the annual report, a weakening of credit demand and an increase in risk costs are expected. However, such a development is not currently reflected in the bank’s books, said Gasselsberger. The bank continues to have “a good pipeline for credit growth over the coming months,” the bank chief said. However, the environment could also turn around again quickly, so the rather cautious outlook is sticking to.
The willingness to invest is still good among large companies, but small and medium-sized companies are already rethinking or postponing their plans more often. Gasselsberger does not see the current interest rate level as a problem. “Even if the key interest rate will rise, this is an interest rate level that customers can easily cope with,” said the Oberbank boss. He expects further rate hikes by the ECB in the coming months.
Criticism of “hesitant” ECB policy
In the course of the increase in July, the custody fee for companies at Oberbank is now history, said the head of the bank. If interest rates continue to rise, he believes that there will also have to be positive interest rates for savings again.
However, Gasselsberger criticized the general policy of the European Central Bank (ECB) as hesitant and ambiguous. In addition, the ECB is not sufficiently geared towards combating inflation. In his opinion, the domestic government is also reacting incorrectly to inflation. He thinks watering can measures like vouchers for everyone are the wrong direction. It would be more important to support the weakest third of the population, who are heavily burdened by inflation, with targeted social benefits.
In terms of development, Gasselsberger believes that inflation has already peaked. An indication of this is that some commodity prices – with the exception of energy prices – are already falling again.
Source: Nachrichten
