ING banks on retail market after strong Q1 results

"The results posted in Q1 allow us to look to the future with optimism," said Brunon Bartkiewicz, president of ING BSK. According to him in Q1 the bank observed large demand for additional sources of financing for enterprises, especially SMEs, as well as for individual mortgage loans. Currently the retail and corporate sectors provide roughly half of the company's revenues each, but Bartkiewicz hopes that soon revenues from the retail sector will become more important thanks to mortgage and consumer loans. "In the first quarter of 2006 we granted twice as many mortgage loans than in the corresponding period of 2005, and Q1 is always the weakest for the mortgage market," said the president. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 10) M.M.