Loans fuel profits

The bank's operational revenue grew by over 10 percent from zł.260.2 million to zł.287.9 million. Other notable results are a 24-percent increase in net commission income (to zł.77 million) and a three-percent growth in net interest income, despite the fact that official interest rates remain at a record low.

Millennium, which is half-owned by Portugal's biggest listed bank Millennium BCP, also announced that its full-year net profit in 2005 more than doubled to zł.567 million, also thanks to one-off gains from the sale of assets and strong loan growth.

"We had a very good quarter ... [While] preparing to expand on the retail market we concentrated on three products: mortgages, credit cards and loans," Millennium's president Bogusław Kott said. "This model brings results."

The bank announced that total loans jumped 39 percent to zł.10.55 billion at the end of March 2006 compared to the corresponding period of the previous year, due mainly to its rapidly growing mortgage portfolio. Millennium's total mortgage loans, one of the most rapidly growing banking products in Poland, more than doubled to reach zł.4.2 billion in the first quarter of 2006.

The lender has ambitious growth plans in the retail banking sector. It wants to invest zł.190 million and open 160 new branches in large and mid-sized Polish cities by 2008.