Poor Q1 result cast shadow of doubt over DB24 strategy

DB24 has posted a zł. 2.8 million Q1 loss and envisages only making a slight profit in the second quarter. "The beginning of 2003 was definitely worse than we had expected. Our bank is dependent on savings of individual clients. Due to the fall in interest rates, their deposits are not significantly increasing," said DB24 president Marek Kulczycki. Apart from expecting some improvement in the second half of the year, Kulczycki does not know whether DB24 is capable of earning as much as last year. The bank still has a bad debt ratio of 48% and a zł. 160 million loss inherited from Bank Współpracy Regionalnej (BWR). If DB24 does not start grow faster it may fail to cover the losses by 2007, which is part of its strategy. (Puls Biznesu, p. 6) A.Z.