Nordea Bank and Sovcombank have signed a supplementary agreement to the framework agreement that was penned in early January, according to which Nordea Bank will assign to Sovcombank the rights to the retail credit portfolio, the lending institutions said in a joint press release. The press release specified that since January 23, 2017 Nordea Bank's all retail borrowers have been transferred for the service to Sovcombank.
The press release emphasized that as of January 1, 2017 Nordea Bank's retail credit portfolio stood at Rub 16 bln and mainly (97.3%) included mortgage loans (most of which are ruble-denominated), and also a marginal amount of auto and consumer loans. After the transaction was struck the new creditor under all obligations will be Sovcombank, while the terms of loan agreements will remain the same for clients.
"The sale of a retail credit portfolio is an important step for Nordea Bank as part of the efforts to reduce retail operations and the strategy of setting up in Russia a corporate investment bank that the bank has pursued since 2015," Nordea Bank management board chairman Mikhail Polyakov commented.
"We are pleased to see clients and employees of Nordea Bank's mortgage lending division at Sovcombank. At the moment our priority is to make the transfer of the current borrowers as comfortable as possible by creating options for long-term trustworthy relations," Sovcombank first deputy management board chairman Sergey Khotimsky noted.
Business daily Kommersant wrote last week that Nordea Bank decided to pull out of retail business by selling its mortgage portfolio of around Rub 16 bln.
