Lithuania

Denmark I Estonia I Finland I Iceland I Latvia I Lithuania I Norway I Sweden

The lending market in Lithuania has exploded in the past 18 months, with Moody’s most recent analysis reporting that retail lending rose by 88% in the year to September 2005. Although that has provided a strong growth environment for all the local banks, the top three continue to account for 67% of the market by total assets; and of those three it is difficult to see beyond SEB Vilniaus Bank as the local leader, with a market share in 2005 of 34% of loans and 31% of deposits. When Fitch affirmed the bank’s rating in December 2005, it advised that the affirmation reflected SEB Vilniaus’s “considerable franchise in Lithuania, improving profitability, healthy asset quality and sophisticated risk-management procedures for its market”.

DnB NORD Bankas – which changed its name recently from Bank NORD/LB Lietuva – takes the award for best Lithuanian debt house for its initiative in promoting a series of equity-linked bonds in the market over the past 12 months.