Information on Šiauliu Bankas Strategy Update 2024 – 2029

On 15 January 2024 Šiauliu Bankas AB announce its Strategy Update for 2024-2029 at the Investors Webinar, outlining its strategic ambition to become the best bank in Lithuania by 2029. The bank is committed to achieving this goal by delivering an exceptional customer experience, fostering top-of-mind recognition among Lithuanian banking clients, expanding its customer base and loan portfolio at a faster pace than the market, and generating mid-to-high teen return on equity.

"To achieve our ambitious goals, we are embarking on a strategic transformation. Our vision is to become the bank key stakeholders choose to grow with, including clients, employees and investors. After completion of the merger of the retail businesses with INVL, we are ready to move forward even faster.

Our major shareholders, including Lithuanian and global business leaders as Tesonet, Willgrow and Invalda INVL, who recently increased their stake in the bank, demonstrate long-term commitment and trust in the bank's future prospects" says Vytautas Sinius, CEO of Šiauliu Bankas.

Šiauliu Bankas strategic initiatives include upgrading the core banking platform, a comprehensive rebranding effort, reaffirming commitment to strong compliance & risk management and a heightened focus on ESG principles. The key priority remains a customer-centric approach, while also ensuring the highest standards of compliance and risk management.

Šiauliu Bankas has signed an agreement with Temenos for the implementation of a core banking platform. Temenos is one of the most advanced banking platforms, used by around 3,000 leading financial institutions worldwide. The cloud-based platform will ensure modular development, flexibility, resilience, and the best customer experience. Platform is planned to be deployed in two years.

The bank is also analyzing rebranding needs. The aim is to ensure that the brand is in line with the Bank's strategic changes and evolving consumer expectations, and to increase the Bank's visibility among its target customer segments. The aim of this strategic move is to be top of mind of consumers in the Lithuanian banking sector.

Šiauliu Bankas sees compliance and risk management as one of the key priorities, which is essential for achieving the best customer experience and strategic growth. The Bank will strengthen its compliance culture, implement new AML, FRAUD, and sanctioning systems, automate data exchange and management systems, and update its customer risk assessment model.

The Bank's customer strategy in the short term is to implement strategic initiatives and grow the value of existing customers of Šiauliu Bankas Group by leveraging cross-selling opportunities and consistently improving the customer experience, and after renewing of the core banking platform and brand from 2026 onwards to attract new higher-value customer segments.

The Bank has renewed its organizational structure with a focus on customers, with the establishment of the Corporate Clients, Private Clients and Investment Clients divisions. 

In the corporate clients segment, Šiauliu Bankas, being a leader in SME and mid-cap enterprise financing, aims to double the number of business customers to 40 thousand by 2029 and to reach 20% of the business financing market.

In the private clients segment, the goal is to reach 1 million customers by 2029 – twice as many as at present – and to ensure that one in three customers will use home banking services.

In the investment clients segment, the Bank aims to become a leader in the debt capital market by offering services to a broader segment of companies seeking for financing on the capital markets and to help businesses raise at least € 500 m annually on the capital markets as of 2029.

The strategy will aim to generate 20+ % average annual return (return on capital, dividends and share appreciation) to investors over the period 2024-2029.

Key financial targets:

	2024	2025	2026	2027–2029
Loan portfolio	€ 3,3 bn	€ 3,7 bn	€ 4,1 bn	8 % (CAGR)
C/I ratio	49,7 %	53,2 %	48,8 %	< 47,5 %.
RoE	13,7 %	13,1 %	15 %	> 15 %

"I believe that this strategy is ambitious and by the end of this decade we will see significant changes both in Šiauliu Bankas and in the Lithuanian banking sector – we are ready to be the inspiration for these changes," says Vytautas Sinius, Chief Executive Officer of Šiauliu Bankas.

Please find enclosed the information provided to the investors on the webinar.

Additional information:
Tomas Varenbergas
Head of Investment Management Division
tomas.varenbergas@sb.lt

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• Siauliu Bankas - Stategy Update (Final) 1