Corporate Banking - Annual Report Capital Group BNP Paribas Poland 2021 (2024)

In 2021, Corporate Banking offers a wide variety of financial services to large and medium-sized enterprises as well as to local government entities with an annual turnover equal to or exceeding PLN 60 million, or in the case of whom the Bank’s exposure is equal to or greater than PLN 18 million, as well as to entities operating as part of multinational capital groups.

Corporate Banking customers are classified into 4 key groups:

• Polish corporations with an annual income greater than PLN 60 million or with a credit exposure greater than or equal to PLN 18 million (or PLN 40 million for business entities related to agricultural production);
• international customers (companies operating in international capital groups);
• large Polish corporations (listed, with annual turnover of more than € 150 million and an investment banking potential);
• public sector and financial institutions.

Additionally, an Agro sub-segment and a Non-agro sub-segment function within the aforesaid groups.

The Corporate Banking area operates on the basis of stable relations with clients, and particular emphasis is placed on the high standard and quality of services provided, professionalism, specialised competencies of sales network employees and product specialists.

The sales network for the Corporate Banking area in 2021 consisted of 6 Corporate Banking Regions located in Warsaw, Gdańsk, Poznań, Katowice, Kraków and Lublin. Within the Regions there were 30 Corporate Banking Centres and Offices located in the largest business centres in Poland, thus ensuring a wide geographical and sector coverage. Within these offices, client advisors serve corporate clients locally. In the second half of 2021, in order to further improve the quality of service and to tailor the services offered even better depending on the specific nature of clients, the specialisation of individual Corporate Banking Centres and Offices into centres dedicated to serving domestic clients or international clients was introduced.

In Q4 2021, the Bank conducted a strategic review of the organisational structure in the Corporate Banking Area, resulting in the following changes from 1 January 2022:

• the existing 6 Corporate Banking Regions were consolidated into 3 Regions,
• the Strategic Client Division was created, including international clients, the largest Polish corporations, financial institutions and selected public sector entities.

These changes are intended, on the one hand, to better address the needs and specificities of the respective customer segment and to better exploit synergies between SME customers and medium-sized corporate customers (MID CAP), and on the other hand to simplify the internal organisational structure. After-sales service for Corporate Banking segment customers is provided through a dedicated Corporate Customer Service Office. Access to products and services is offered through modern online and mobile banking systems. In addition, a new central unit, the Premium Customer Service Office, was established in 2021 to provide the highest level of after-sales service to strategic Corporate Banking customers.

In the second half of 2021, a new product – an overdraft facility with a maximum base rate (MSB) responding to the upward trend in interest rates – was made available to customers as part of the credit offering.

Out of concern for the environment and as part of the implementation of the sustainable development policy, in 2021 the Bank expanded its offer to customers within the framework of green and sustainable financing (photovoltaics and RES projects, investment loans Green Energy and UNIA+, technology loans, the EKO-FIRMA programme with profit, leasing of photovoltaic installations, Sustainability Linked Loan – SLL).

The year 2021 in Corporate Banking was a period of intensive efforts directed at further increasing the scale of our business and strengthening our market position. This was particularly important after 2020, when the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economic slowdown translated into a decline in client business activity and the Bank’s performance.

In 2021, in a difficult economic environment related to the persistent COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank continued to support Corporate Banking clients under government aid programmes targeted at Polish enterprises:

• PFR Financial Shield 2.0
• PFR Financial Shield 1.0

In 2021, the adopted business growth strategy was based on:

• acquisition and activation of new clients,
• development of transactionality of customers and increasing the number of products used by customers (cross-sell of individual product lines),
• development of credit action,

• acquisition and servicing of companies conducting international business,
• building the position of a leading bank in providing foreign trade and specialist finance services (trade finance / specialized finance, global trade solutions).

The above activities have resulted in very good sales results including:

• 905 new customers were acquired, i.e. +4% y/y
• new sales of credit limits amounted to nearly PLN 10.8 billion, i.e. +20% y/y

• the volume of the Customers’ deposit portfolio increased by PLN 8.6bn, i.e. +37.2%, reaching PLN 31.6 bn at the end of December 2021.

As part of its Corporate Banking activities in the area of sustainable financing, the Bank concluded several important loan agreements. In July, the Bank signed one of the first Sustainability Linked Loan (SLL) agreements in the European logistics industry. This was a 5-year €225m syndicated loan for logistics operator Raben Group, in which the Bank acts as Sustainability Coordinator. The bank has also financed the solar power portfolio of R.Power, the largest Polish developer of photovoltaic projects.

In 2021, the Bank also continued to work on scaling up digitisation and automation of processes, which included:

• the GOonline Biznes e-banking system was successively developed – new functionalities and modules were implemented or extended (Accounts module, Export and Import Collection module, Loans module) and a new system login page was made available,
• new self-service solutions were introduced for customers in GOonline Biznes: new types of instructions were made available, an automatic process of opening auxiliary accounts was implemented,

• the remote onboarding process for customers based on an e-signature has been extended. It does not require a physical meeting with a Bank employee and the use of paper documents. Non-resident customers were also included in the process,
• the KYC periodic recertification process has been improved by providing customers with an electronic Recertification e-Application to support this process.

The Bank offers fast and comprehensive services related to guarantees and letters of credit, based on dedicated IT solutions.

In 2021, at the request of Corporate Banking customers, the Bank:

• issued 5,103 bank guarantees, with a total value of PLN 3,952 million,
• opened 1,290 import letters of credit with a total value of PLN 1,031.2 million and handled 417 export letters of credit with a total value of PLN 718.9 million issued by other banks for those customers.

As at 31 December 2021, deposits from Corporate Banking customers amounted to PLN 31,597,965 thousand and were PLN 8,562,766 thousand or 37.2% higher than at the end of 2020. In the structure of the portfolio, the share of current accounts decreased (by 6.9 p.p., to 86.3%), with a simultaneous increase in the share of time deposits (by 5.4 p.p., to 11.7%) and savings accounts (by 1.4 p.p., to 2.0%).

The net loan portfolio of the Corporate Banking segment on a consolidated basis amounted to as at 31 December 2021 PLN 24,655,759 thousand, up 12.1% over the balance at the end of 2020. The increase was mainly in overdrafts (highest growth rate of 28.4%), investment loans and leasing.

The Corporate Banking segment generated a gross profit of PLN 607,691 thousand in 2021 (compared to PLN 542,412 thousand in 2020, an increase of 12.0%). This was due to higher banking profit, lower cost of risk and lower tax on financial institutions.

The result from Corporate Banking activities amounted to PLN 1,157,209 thousand and was higher by PLN 64,655 thousand or 5.9% compared to 2020. This was due to an improvement in net fee and commission income and net trading income as a result of, among other things, changes in pricing policies and higher customer activity, particularly in the second half of 2021. The segment’s result from banking activities represented 24.1% of the Group’s result from banking activities in 2021.